#STUFFEMMETTEATS

Emmett is a 2 year old Great Pyrenees, and he is tall enough to get to anything unattended.  This can be a pet owner’s worst nightmare.  When you have a curious puppy or young dog, there are all kinds of household hazards you need to constantly be aware of, so we are going to use Emmett’s constant escapades to help our pet owner’s navigate through the tricky health concerns of all puppies and young dogs.

Episode #1  Grapes, and Raisins…..and this means your favorite yogurt covered raisins, and raisin nut bran, too.

Emmett, and his accomplice Haley, have had multiple close encounters with grapes and raisins.  It is likely that these foods are pretty common components of your kitchen as well, especially with children afoot.

Many owners are now aware that grapes and raisins are some of the key toxic foods they are taught to avoid feeding their pets.  But often times, the pet gets into the food in more sneaky ways, and it can be easy to forget in the aftermath of your pet’s naughty food stealing adventures, that the food they just snagged is truly toxic.

The encounter:

Scenario 1: Imagine you just baked a whole batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.  They are sitting on your counter cooling, as you have guests over that will soon enjoy your baking endeavors.  Your puppy sneaks into the kitchen, and even though they are still very small, they somehow manage to knock over the cookie sheet, and happily ingest all 12 cookies.  This is disastrous, you really were looking forward to those cookies, and now your naughty puppy will definitely have a belly ache.  It’s easy, in the scurry of the events, to forget that there are a large number of raisins in those cookies that can lead to catastrophic consequences to your puppy’s health.

Scenario 2: Your toddler is wandering around, happily munching on yogurt covered raisins in one of those great kids’ snack cups with the little lid that helps prevent spills.  Perfect, because she is eating the raisins, but is unlikely to drop any on the ground; proceed with finishing dinner.  Until that cute little toddler dumps a whole handful of yogurt raisins down on the ground for your dog, who is only too happy to help clean up this mess before you can even realize this disaster has occurred.

The scoop:

Dogs who eat grapes and raisins typically vomited within a few hours of ingestion.  Many dogs will show a lack of appetite or energy, initially.  However, our main concern with grape/raisin ingestion is acute kidney failure.  The kidney damage continues until the dogs are no longer producing urine, and this condition is fatal. 

The plan:

Testing of the grapes/raisins for toxins, heavy metals, and bacterial contamination has not really yielded an exact medical cause for the renal failure some dogs experience with this ingestion.  However, prompt treatment can successfully prevent or minimize the damage these foods can do to your pet’s system.  Pet’s seen promptly at a veterinary office for either type of ingestion, are first decontaminated, removing as much of the food from their stomach as possible by vomiting, or activated charcoal binding agent.  They are then placed on IV (Intravenous fluids) to keep their kidneys flushing out these toxins.  Your veterinarian will be continually be monitoring your pet’s kidney values until the danger has passed.

Join us next time for #STUFFEMMETTEATS-CHEETOS.