Dogs have been living next to humans for centuries in a row. They give us their love and fidelity, protect, serve at the borders and work as guides. Unfortunately, city life is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous for our favorites. Walking areas are closed everywhere, pets are forbidden to go to squares and parks, and if the dog gives a voice while remaining in the apartment, neighbors complain. But this is not the worst. A wave of poisoning of pets on walks continually rolls through large and small cities. An accident? An absurd coincidence? Or intentional destruction? What to do if a dog is poisoned, and how to prevent a tragic ending.
Background
Most dogs have the habit of picking up different pieces from the ground that seem attractive to them. Therefore, it is very important from early childhood to deal with the animal, train it. One of the key skills is the ability to refuse food that a stranger gives, as well as the acquired prohibition on lifting something from the ground. This will greatly facilitate your life, although it does not guarantee complete safety. Today, doghunters even practice the treatment of trees and grass with special compounds. By smelling and licking them, your pet will also receive a portion of the poison. Therefore, it is so important to know what to do if the dog is poisoned.
First signs
Worst of all, if the owner at the right time is not nearby. For example, you hastily brought your pet to the site and didn’t notice how he grabbed the “present” deliberately or accidentally, after which you quietly left for work. Until the evening, the pet is unlikely to survive. The case is described when communal workers worked on laying rat poison in the cellars. Finishing work in the last entrance in the evening, we forgot a bag of poison on the bench and left. At night by the wind he was carried to the grass, where he was found the next day by a dog. A tragedy that could have been avoided.
The first signs appear rather quickly, from 1 to 3 hours will pass - and the clinical picture will already be obvious. Symptoms may vary depending on which active ingredient is the cause. It should alert:
- Serious impaired coordination.
- Profuse salivation, foam from the mouth.
- Convulsions and convulsions.
- Blue tongue.
- General anxiety, the dog whimpers, howls and rushes about.
If you observe one or more symptoms, you need to act immediately. Procrastination will lead to an early and painful death of the animal. Below we will consider what to do if the dog is poisoned.
Rodent Poison
It is he who causes the death of domestic animals in the vast majority of cases. On the one hand, this is the negligence of the owners themselves. Using means to fight mice and rats, they leave them in places accessible to the dog. If the poisoned grain is not of interest, then sausage or minced meat - on the contrary. In addition, such a bait is used by ill-wishers. What to do if a dog is poisoned with rat poison? Run to the vet immediately. Most of these toxic substances lead to a violation of blood coagulation and damage to small and large capillaries. That is, the dog will painfully die from internal bleeding, slowly and inevitably.
The danger of rat poison
It happens that misfortune comes from where they did not wait. The poisoned rodent does not die immediately and sometimes overcomes considerable distances, that is, it can come from neighbors. Obeying your instinct, your pet can catch it. Dog ate a poisoned rat - what to do? Well, if you notice this. It's time to take measures to cleanse the stomach of the food that got into it, as well as detoxification. It is much worse if the poison managed to be absorbed into the blood and act. In this case, success will depend on how quickly treatment is started. After first aid, be sure to take your pet to the veterinarian. It is best to leave him in the clinic for a day, so that he will be under the supervision of a specialist and take a course of preventive measures.
It should be noted that there are many poisons for rodents. This is the main difficulty, because it is too late to conduct an examination if the dog ate a poisoned mouse. What to do to the owner? Try to induce vomiting as soon as possible and take the pet to the doctor. Depending on the clinical symptoms, the specialist may suggest what kind of poison the mouse was poisoned and take action.
Variety of poisons
Today they are released a lot. Manufacturers add meat-flavored flavorings to fight off the smell of poison. But it works for both rodents and dogs. Today, rat poison baits are laid out to destroy homeless animals. This is an extremely cruel way to destroy their population, because they die in terrible agony.
But your favorite can pick up the bait. What to do if a dog is poisoned? First of all, you need to assess the condition of the animal. There are two groups of poisons:
- High-speed. It is not in free sale, only special services use such funds. In this case, you are practically powerless. Even if you instantly go to the clinic, damage to internal organs will be incompatible with life.
- Substance of prolonged action. Drugs of this group are sold in special departments, purchased to control rodents. They can be bought by those who intentionally want to harm dogs or get rid of stray animals.
Among the substances of the second group, brodifacum, triphenacin, rats, and several others can be distinguished. They are classified by type of toxin and have different effects. The knowledge of these signs will help to orient in a situation if the dog was poisoned. What to do at home, we will now analyze, but so far a few words about the symptoms.
- Anticoagulants of the first and second generation affect the blood. It ceases to fold and loses its functions, ceases to supply internal organs with oxygen. You can observe bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth, from the anus and vagina.
- Krysid is very toxic. Under its influence, pulmonary edema and convulsions occur.
- Zinc phosphide is also very toxic, it destroys the walls of the stomach and affects nervous reactions.
And if the pet got the poison of the first group in the stomach, then the symptoms can appear only after a couple of days.
Poison action
This should also be remembered if you have a dog poisoned. What to do at home? It is required to stop exposure to the toxin as quickly as possible. All these poisons are made for killing. Once inside a living organism, they cause pathological changes in the blood. She ceases to perform her life-giving functions. All organs gradually atrophy, which causes a slow and painful death of the animal. For poisoning you need only a few mg of poison. Puppies and young dogs respond faster to toxins, they develop pathologies faster.
How to save an animal
We go directly to the question of what to do. The neighbors poisoned the dog, she found bait on the street or caught a dying mouse - there will be one outcome if measures are not taken in time.
- The first step is to induce vomiting. To do this, the stomach is washed with weak potassium permanganate. Take a 20 gram syringe. For an adult animal, you will need to repeat this procedure 4-5 times, for small one time is enough. After that, click on the root of the tongue to provoke vomiting.
- Flush the intestines. To do this, 100 ml of warm solution must be injected into the anus using a children's enema. After the bowel movement, repeat the procedure.
- Give the animal a diluted magnesium sulfate powder.
Of course, we are considering a simplified version. It is suitable if you observe obvious symptoms and know exactly what the fault is (for example, the neighbors poisoned the dog). What if the malaise develops rapidly, but you cannot understand what is the reason? Go to the clinic immediately, where an experienced specialist can provide first aid and take tests at the same time.
We provide assistance
If the veterinarian is currently unavailable, you are unable to deliver the animal to the clinic or call a specialist at home (you have a large and heavy dog, no personal transport, the phone does not work), then you need to continue to take rescue measures. Now we will tell you what to do. If the dog was poisoned by doghunters, the chances of salvation, alas, are very small. They use potent drugs that kill for sure.
- Try vomiting again. To do this, use saline. Do it by diluting a tablespoon of salt in a glass of water. You can dilute 0.5 tablespoon of salt in a glass of milk or buy sodium chloride in a bottle.
- Pyridoxine hydrochloride, or B 6 . Draw the contents of 10 ampoules of 1 ml into one syringe and inject intramuscularly into the hind paw. You can repeat the procedure after an hour and a half.
- Sometimes the symptoms develop so rapidly that you understand: a dog poisoned on the street dies in his arms. What should the owner do in this case? Inject "Diphenhydramine" with "Analgin" and "No-Shpu" intramuscularly. This will not save the animal, but will facilitate its last minutes.
- If the situation is more or less stable, then after vomiting, it is imperative to give the animal absorbents. You can apply activated carbon powder at the rate of 1 tablet per 10 kg of weight. There are special cleansing preparations - Polysorb, Polyphepan and others.
- You need to drink as much fluid as possible, literally pour in with a syringe every 5 minutes. In parallel, use diuretics, most often it is "Furosemide."
If the nausea has stopped, you can give the animal a jelly-like decoction of flaxseed. It envelops the walls of the intestines and prevents the absorption of toxic substances. But even at this stage, help cannot be called complete. It is necessary to find a way to show the pet to the veterinarian.
If time is lost
This is a sore point, but in this case, the owner must know what to do. The dog was poisoned with poison, which means you only have a couple of hours to clear the stomach of deadly contents. After that, it passes into the intestines, and there’s no sense in torturing the animal with useless vomiting. This can not be done with convulsions and a clear nervous lesion. Do not try to feed the animal.
No matter how you want to help, do not start self-treatment. What to do if a dog is poisoned, only a specialist should think based on the clinical picture. Doctors rarely wait for lab results. They measure temperature, blood pressure and pulse, and then ask the owner about what happened. Based on this, an assumption is made about the nature of the poison and treatment begins. Laboratory studies can correct the initial diagnosis and therapy. For this, the blood of the animal is examined for the presence of poison.
A course of treatment
After the acute symptoms of poisoning are stopped, the doctor has many more important tasks. Namely: to restore the body, remove toxins and poisons from it. For this, a long course of vitamin K1 is prescribed. In severe poisoning, a blood transfusion is done on the first day until it is completely cleansed. This procedure restores normal blood coagulation.
If strong and fast-acting poisons get into the body, the doctor prescribes drugs to restore the functioning of the heart and blood vessels, to cleanse the liver and eliminate pulmonary edema.
Doghunter Activities
In their cruel case, they often use drugs that are easy to get. Very often, this is Isoniazid, a drug used to treat tuberculosis. For humans, it is not toxic, which cannot be said of our smaller brothers. In dogs, the drug disables certain parts of the brain. Death occurs after 40 minutes, at most after 5 hours. The cause of death is oxygen starvation. Moreover, the animal experiences strong pain due to paralysis of the respiratory muscles.
The antidote is vitamin B6. That is why it is recommended to keep it in your medicine cabinet constantly. A simple and affordable tool will help if the dog is poisoned with pills from tuberculosis. What to do? It is necessary to inject intramuscularly 10 ml of vitamin, and after 2 hours repeat the procedure.
Zoocoumarin
Signs of intoxication are bloody vomiting and diarrhea, lethargy and pallor of the mucous membranes. The animal moans in pain, the temperature is usually high. Rat poison violates blood coagulation. In this case, symptoms usually develop slowly, and the owner can notice them only after a few days. But the animal can be saved only within 12 hours. Then the damage to the capillaries is gaining momentum and internal bleeding intensifies. Most often, helping a poisoned dog is too late.
Other means
Doghenters use a rather large arsenal of tools.
- Sometimes a drug for the manifestation of photographic film acts as a murder weapon. The lethal dose is about 5 g. It is toxic to humans. The substance blocks hemoglobin, or rather turns it into another substance that is not able to carry oxygen. Death occurs very quickly, antidotes do not exist.
- Strychnine is used to control rats. In a dog, it causes muscle spasm and twitching. Convulsions lead to death.
- Arsenic is used in insecticides. This leads to thirst and a sharp loss of appetite, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea.
- Phosphorus. Signs of phosphorus poisoning are anxiety, abdominal pain, greenish vomiting. In addition, swelling of the tongue, yellowing of the sclera and weakness develop.
Next to you
Situations when people live nearby who love and hate animals, unfortunately, are not uncommon. What to do if your neighbors threaten to poison the dog? Complaining with law enforcement agencies is practically useless. They will not make any effort. The exception is if you can prove that this is a thoroughbred animal that is very expensive. Then it can be regarded as a threat to harm valuable property. But do not forget that you also need to prove that these threats were. Therefore, record on a voice recorder, invite witnesses.
Of course, it is best to solve the matter peacefully. Try to minimize the contact of your pet with a neighbor, and establish contact with him. Go visit with sweets, find out how he lives, what he likes. Gradually, he will become more disposed towards you and lenient towards your pet. Do not forget about training, the animal should not take anything from the ground and from other people.