SIGNS TO LOOK FOR: Rodent /Rat / Mouse Poisoning

[johninny]

had a scare a month ago and an real emergency 1 year ago. adding these 2 events in my household to the death of tappy4me's maiya, i thought it might be good to relate what i learned [ which is everything i know as i knew nothing before ] and SEE IF OTHERS CAN ADD MORE. unfortunately, it is not something i had ever given ANY thought to prior to last year's close call because i stay clear of dangers like that - whether poisons, pesticides, herbicides, toxic cleaners, etc - on my property.

first, what happened to my dogs:
early last year on a trip to New England, Sakima and Xander [ not my current and permanent TxXander from Paris, TX., but a rescue adopted out to great home in VA a month later ] got into a whole lot of rodent poison. i was lucky for even noticing, but Saki [ who spent 3 weeks fending for himself in the wild by the time he was 7 months old ] gets obsessed with ''food'' he can find on his own to the point of gluttony [ unlike in-house where he eats slowly and chews every morsel ]. i recognized this mental state; searched for the excitement but could not find, but his mouth inside was so blue as if he had eaten an entire platter of turquoise blueberries.
i knew then i had a problem, though no idea how life-threateningly serious it was. called poison control [a step that was a huge waste of time and money in this case ] and then found a vet who would deal with this at nighttime. Saki's stomach was pumped; he had eaten a really enormous amount of poison. by then i had learned how horrendous this could be, so despite the fact that i thought Xander had gotten little or no poison, his stomach was pumped/flushed also. good thing because he had gotten a dangerous amount, tho nothing like Saki.
so i learned how deadly, how horrendous a death, emergency action [ get the poison out of the stomach before it goes elsewhere ] and that it can happen to anyone at anytime - so always be on the lookout.
i also THOUGHT i learned that the poison has to be dealt with very quickly - that once you see internal signs in a dog, it is probably too late. [ with Saki, that may have been the case since he ate enough to kill every rodent in nyc.]

then a month ago, around noon one day, i thought i saw an unusually bloodshot eye on Saki. inspected and found one eye bloodshot and the other eye rather more than bloodshot. called the vet, described, but got no call back. kept checking. by late afternoon, the worst eye was SOLID BRIGHT RED everywhere it should have been whitish. the other eye not far behind. finally, the vet talked to me and saw Saki that night. she gave me 3 possible diagnoses: rat poison [ which had not occurred to me and at which point i thought he is lost if that is the case ], a genetic clotting disorder, or blunt trauma to the head. he got tests and treatment for poison. i was to look for more signs of poisoning.
WHAT I LEARNED: anti-clotting poison first shows up in the eyes. next would be drops of blood oozing from the gums and/or bloody bruising showing up in the abdominal area where less fur makes it easier to see. catch these signs early and you still may have time to save the dog.
Fortunately, this time it was not any kind of clotting problem, but i

[johninny]

[ my post was interrupted, so just completing the last sentence here ]

was glad to learn that days after ingestion, one might pick up signs [if a blue tongue was missed at the time of ingestion ] early enough to avert a worst-case outcome.

[feraloup]

Excellent info., Jon! Thank you for sharing, I'd have had no idea to look for the bloodshot eyes or abdominal bruising, and bleeding gums could easily be misinterpreted as having come from jaw-wrestling with playmates. I'm so glad that your pack are all well with no lasting damage due to your quick actions! I like to consider myself very vigilant about avoiding such things, but life happens, and with the amount of time we spend in barns and old farmhouses, one never knows what might be encountered. Especially with super-high prey-drive dogs, even getting ahold of a rodent that had gotten ahold of poison could be a problem... and Freyja, especially, is like your Saki in that, having been a stray in the wild for some time before we rescued her, she is really, really, REALLY opportunistic and enthusiastic about anything that even remotely resembles something edible-like. Excellent post to share.