Mia May Have a Death Wish
Ugh!After last month’s bacon incident, we’ve been extra careful with stuff Mia the lab can get into. However, she’s apparently got a nose for trouble. Mia was downstairs, unattended for all of 15 minutes while I was putting the kids to bed. When I came down the stairs, I saw her scurry away with the guilty face. I went to the living room to investigate, and found some shredded paper and the remnants of a pack of gum.
In case you don’t know: many brands of sugar-free gum contain a sweetener called Xylitol. For whatever reason, this stuff makes dogs develop profound hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and later on rots out their livers. It doesn’t take much gum, and it is often fatal. Is it super creepy to anyone else that we humans are consuming this stuff?
Anyhow, I got out the syringe of Apomorphine (stuff to induce vomiting) that I keep in the freezer for just these occasions so it could thaw. Then I called ASPCA Animal Poison Control (I swear they need to just give me a punch card…10th call is free…).
I had to do a little detective work as the poison control vet needed the brand name of the gum and the wrapper was in slimy pieces. I assembled what I could and Google Image searched using the key words on the brand name I could make out. Thankfully, the gum she got did not contain Xylitol.
Big relief. I re-froze the Apomorphine. I shot my husband a probably less than nice text informing him to be more careful with is gum.
It’s past my bedtime, but I wanted to put this out there as a reminder that sugar-free gum, while good for your teeth is very bad for your dog. FYI.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )
