In a 48-hour period last weekend, three dogs who are very close to me ended up in veterinary emergency rooms. It was a very weird aggregation of events – but each event was avoidable, and each dog’s owner has taken responsibility for their dog’s potentially deadly accident.
Beware of Wild Animals Around Your Property
The first accident happened to Daisy, my sister’s little 15-pound Jack Russell Terrier. My sister and her husband live in a rural area, where most of the homes are on lots of a half-acre or more. In addition, they live at the bottom of a steep hill, on a court with just five houses on it, and several empty lots. She sometimes allows her little dogs to potty in the empty half-acre lot next door to her house. The lot is, like her own backyard, studded with oak trees, but unlike her yard, is covered with tall grass, and the little dogs enjoy sniffing and exploring the area as they take their potty break.
On this particular day, though, what my sister failed to notice as she let the dogs wander into the lot, was a female deer apparently lounging at the back of the lot. She didn’t see the moment that two of her dogs discovered the deer – or whether the deer spotted the dogs before they spotted her. But she heard one of her dogs shrieking and as she ran in the direction of the screams, saw a large female deer rearing up and stomping down on one of her little dogs.
Like many of us, she was focused on getting to and protecting her dog, and failed to appreciate the danger to herself as she ran toward the deer. She said she was yelling, “Hey! Hey!” and about 15 feet from the deer, fully expecting the deer to spook and run from her, when it, instead, reared up and charged at HER. She screamed and waved her arms and dodged behind a tree, and fortunately, little Daisy took that opportunity to bolt away from the deer. My sister, too, turned and ran and, again, fortunately, the deer didn’t pursue either of them. I suspect that she had a baby resting nearby or some other reason to go on the offensive. My sister didn’t investigate further, as Daisy was still screaming – now in pain, rather than from fear. The deer’s hooves had made one very deep and long laceration along Daisy’s flank, and her face was bleeding, too.
A night in the ER, x-rays, pre-anesthetic bloodwork, surgery (under anesthesia) to close the laceration and insert a drain, antibiotics, and pain medication: $1,600. Nope, they don’t have pet insurance.
Don’t Leave Out Food Leftovers or Dirty Dishes
The very next morning, I received a call from a friend regarding her dog Nova, who was my favorite puppy from a litter I fostered last fall. (I used her and Nova to model for an article in WDJ not long ago, you can see them here.) She said, “I just need a little support. I am at the ER with Nova and scared!” It seems she had made barbequed ribs the night before, and had left the glass pan, covered with baked-on sauce, on the stove top, to deal with the next day. In the middle of the night, Nova had apparently knocked the pan onto the kitchen floor, where it shattered into hundreds of pieces – and she spent some time licking the sauce off of those pieces of glass! There was broken glass – and blood – all over the kitchen floor. My friend didn’t hesitate; she just put Nova into the car and drove straight to the emergency clinic.
The attending veterinarian used an endoscope (under full anesthesia) to examine Nova’s esophagus and stomach, and removed several pieces of glass – as well as several pieces of chewed-up tennis ball. She was incredibly lucky; the procedure took place quickly enough that Nova hadn’t yet vomited (which could have made the glass cause damage on the way out of the stomach and in Nova’s throat), nor had the glass hadn’t started to move through Nova’s intestines. The blood that her owner saw on the kitchen floor was definitely caused by cuts the glass made on Nova’s tongue, but none of those cuts (nor others in her esophagus) were serious enough to require surgical repair.
Total cost: $2100. Fortunately, Nova’s owner has pet health insurance. Since she had another vet visit earlier this year and has already spent the $250 deductible for 2019, she will receive a reimbursement from the insurance company for 90 percent of the most recent bill.
Nova’s owner reports: “I have learned my lesson; my counters are the cleanest in the county and there won’t ever be a mistake made like this again. Also, no more tennis balls for Nova.”
Another Counter-Surfing Case
The same afternoon that my friend was picking up Nova after her procedure, I received a text from another friend! “Ricky ate Chaco’s pain meds. We are at (a local vet clinic).”
While ALL medications should be kept in kitchen or bathroom cabinets – never on counters that dogs can reach – this is especially true of chewable medications. Most dogs won’t eat more than one nasty-tasting pill they find lying around. But the chewable kind tempts many dogs into eating the whole bottle – and that’s what Ricky did. He ate about eight Deramaxx pills, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) that can cause liver damage if an overdose is consumed.
Again, fortunately, my friend discovered the chewed-up, empty bottle right away, and drove immediately to a veterinary hospital, where they administered an injection of apomorphine, which makes dogs almost instantaneously vomit. So Ricky has (apparently) suffered no ill effects, and the bill was a quite reasonable $170 (no insurance).
We’re All Susceptible
Lest anyone think I am judging my friends: I, too, once had a dog eat a whole bottle of chewable medication meant for another dog (I wrote about that in 2013!). The experience made me VERY careful about where I put medications.
Protecting our dogs is an ongoing, complex task, and none of us can prevent every potentially fatal accident. But all of these were preventable – and my sister and friends and I all hope that these stories make you just that much more alert and able to prevent any of these accidents from befalling your dogs!
In case you want to learn about more ways to avoid a trip to the veterinary ER, here is a link to an article that veterinarian Catherine Ashe (who practiced emergency veterinary medicine for nine years) wrote for us last year.
Regarding medication: my friends goldendoodle came across her daughters prescription for adderol. He ingested nearly the entire bottle. He was in ICU for nearly a week and did fortunately survive but has had seizures since and has had to relearn many behaviors. ANY medication whether it smells good or not can be dangerous.
Please use baby gates especially with large puppies, to keep from counter surfing in the kitchen until they learn the OFF command.
OMG. Casually glanced at this yesterday in my e-mail inbox while waiting for an appt. Subconsciously thought it was a good reminder since as a pup parent for decades there have been unfortunate accidents here and there. Didn’t really think any more about it….
Today I brought my 3 pups (5-9 years old) with me to visit my Dad’s house – an old farm on a couple of acres. Haven’t been out back much this year, and while I quickly mowed a few weeks ago so the grass didn’t become a forest, it is still overgrown here and there. In years past we have had fawns back there as it is a beautiful, peaceful space …even has it’s own small natural spring.
With this post sort of in the back of my mind, I put my 35lb huntress of a terrier mix on a long leash – she has a high prey drive and then some! We walk around the corner and she instantly alerts. I don’t see anything…. when suddenly I realize we’re looking straight at a coyote.
I am more than happy to share space with wildlife and (sadly) understand the predators come along with the fawns and bunnies and fat robin fledglings. However, until now, have not encountered them in person.
Add to this a few weeks ago coming out to the farm, let the pups out in the morning and they suddenly rushed into the house an hour later exhausted and covered in blood and mini-perforated bites. Since there is an occasional snark between my 2 males I was immensely concerned they had fought each other so severely (yet were perfectly happy beside each other when racing into the house.) We DO have pet insurance and the boys were taken care of …. with the vet asking if it could had been a coyote encounter. No, I said, never see them around…. And now as of this morning whole heartedly believe it WAS a coyote encounter which I was ignorantly unaware of.
Returning to this blog pist and my prey-drive pup on a long leash with me because of it…. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. I would not have had my girl safely on a leash without the story of deer attack and tall grass in the back of my mind. Without a doubt you saved her from likely significant injury if not worse (the strong boys were still up in the house). And because of THAT, you also likely saved future attacks had I not sharpened my awareness and continued to let them out.
My apologies at the length of this …. however I wanted you to know the impact of your post <3.
If you can post the ref. to this article on one of my two Facebook pages, please do. Karen Gadke, and the second page is Stateline Spay/Neuter & Education Fund. It might not work but you can try. I’m a prevention/what if person. I’ll go back in the house to check the stove if I leave the house. My husband thinks I’m overdoing it, but I say, our cats have jumped on the stove and could bump a burner switch and turn the stove on.
My two experiences with pet insurance – two different companies – left me determined NOT to fall prey to it ever again. People tend to forget that insurance companies exist to make money – i.e. to deny coverage wherever possible. My first dog cost me about $30,000, for which I was paid about $2,500/lifetime. My second dog, who died just a few days ago, had $2,500/yr/complaint, which failed to cover over $20,000 I paid for her cancer treatment. I will never buy insurance again, because the premiums don’t begin to cover what companies pay out for a major illness.
Last Thursday night my boy Galoot ate 2 huge corn cobs. I had left the room for literally 20 seconds – when I got back, there was no trace of them. No crumbs, no kernals, no wet spots, nothing. He was under anesthesia for 2 1/2 hours while they tried to remove all the chunks with an endoscope. It was important to act before they migrated to his intestinal tract and caused more serious damage – or death. They got it all and he’s fine now. Cost -$3000.
And be careful of potato chip type bags – dog/cat… they put their heads in and their breathing takes the air out of the bag, the bag deflates, gets tight and suffocates them. Thankfully not from experience – saw it on Inside Edition.
My 4-year-old dog Osiris spent 8 days in the hospital after my husband decided to start giving him some time out of his crate unattended while I was at work and left my 11-year-old dog Orion’s medications on the kitchen counter. Luckily I discovered that Osiris ate the 83 pimobendan tablets and 15 vetprofen tablets but didn’t touch the over 200 tramadol tablets, 55 mexiletine capsules or 75 sotalol tablets (I use an app to track dosing schedule & refills so I knew exactly how much I had of each medication on hand and exactly how much Osiris ate). Osiris suffered “injuries” to his heart and kidneys, and his kidneys got bad enough for a couple of days that we didn’t know if he was going to make it. It will be a few months before we know if any of the damage is permanent, but he is alive and is getting better every day. Thank goodness I have insurance for Osiris. My husband no longer entertains the idea of allowing Osiris free roam in our apartment when no one is home.
This exact thing happened to me! I left a greasy pan on the back of the stove waiting for the next dishwasher load and left the house. My son stopped by and the whole house was filled with gas also. My little Italian greyhound had jumped up and down and turned the gas knob on. We knew he had jumped many times by the multiple scratches he left in the stove’s finish. All the dogs were fine and I never ever leave dirty dishes on the stovetop.
One of my springers loved to chase deer in a local park–until the day one of them turned the tables and he came running full-tilt back to mom. He was more hesitant to engage in his favorite sport after that.
Bad form! Do not let your dogs chase deer….anywhere,any time! Deer or dog could injure themselves or dart into traffic or fall off a ledge. But mostly it is just plain old mean of you!
What would cause you to think it is in anyway ok to allow your dog to chase deer – and in a public park? Thoughtless behavior gives other dog owners a bad name. In my state, harassing wildlife can result in fines. I can’t believe you find this to be an amusing pastime for your animal.