# help - dog ate "just one bite" rat poison



## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

I was cleaning out the garage, and overnight the dog found three partial packages of Just One Bite rat poison. The packages are now empty.

I have Toxiban, a charcoal suspension used for goat in poisoning cases. It is, of course, a holiday.

What else to do?


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## Rocktown Gal (Feb 19, 2008)

I would say get the dog to a vet. I would be worried about internal bleeding. You should try to induce vomiting...it may help. Vet would be my answer. Good Luck


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## fffarmergirl (Oct 9, 2008)

Get Vitamin K into him as fast as you can, any way you can. Dark green leafy vegetables. Rat poison is the same thing as coumadin and Vitamin K reverses coumadin but it will take a lot.

Maybe cook up a ton of spinach in broth and add a bunch of fat to it - anything you can do to get him to eat as much as he can possibly eat starting now and over the next few days.

We give vitamin K injections for coumadin overdoses in the hospital - I imagine your vet has it but it's probably pretty expensive to go on the 4th of July. Might be worth it, though, if you love your dog.

Keep the dog still and quiet and do not let him play hard or injure himself even slighly in any way and make sure you don't feed anything hard that might scratch the insides of his intestines.

I would not induce vomiting unless he's ingested it in the past hour - would not want to cause esophageal bleeding and if it's been more than an hour it's probably too late for that anyway.


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## beccachow (Nov 8, 2008)

Alice, you might really want to think about taking him to an emergency vet if you have one available; if he does start with internal bleeding it might be too late for the vet to help.

I am so sorry ((HUGS)).


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## Veronica (Oct 31, 2008)

I would get him to the vet.


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

go to the vet!!!!! they may be able to save him...maybe....


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## bluefish (Jan 27, 2006)

The vet will just get him vit K. It is essential, though. I used to work at a vet clinic and we used to put mouse poison up above the ceiling panels. The clinic cat would get into it. She got into it 3 or 4 times before we figured out how she was getting up there and fixed it. Every time it was vit K for several days.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

If you immediately take him in after it happens they could make him vomit up what 
is still left in his tummy that hasn't been absorbed. He also needs some Vit K. If time has passed, then he needs Vit K, but they can't stop what has already been absorbed. If he has signs of bleeding, he will need some transfusions too. 
If he lives a couple of weeks, then he will probably live. Often, internal bleeding doesn't show up for a day or more, so the dog may look fine for a couple of days then suddenly pass.


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## Molly Mckee (Jul 8, 2006)

You can call the poison emergency number for people to get info for dogs. This is an emergency ---call the vet.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

Kale has more vit k than spinach. Some grocery stores with pharmacies are still open today and might have pills of vit k you could dissolve and give with a syringe or in something a lot easier than getting most dogs to eat veggies.

Not all rat poison these days works on vit k. The active ingredient in some cannot be countered that way and requires much more supportive care. An ER vet would definitely be needed in that case. 

Any time you see your dog get in to something like that you can induce vomiting nearly immediately with a few cc or ml of hydrogen peroxide. I've had to do it to our shiba a few times. She thinks my sleeping meds must be tasty food since I take them every night and she's willing to eat anything even if it's not food like the packaging peanut incident...


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## gapeach (Dec 23, 2011)

Alice, do you have an update?


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## hardworkingwoman (Jun 4, 2009)

Activated charcoal! I had a baby pot belly pig get into this one time (she died). The vet gave her charcoal but it was to late and she ate to much. It was the most terrible day ever, especially when I knew it was my fault for thinking I hid it well enough. I do not use it now. Hope you were successful.


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

My buck rabbit ate some rat poison a while back. It was nearly a week before he started eating again.


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## Stonybrook (Sep 22, 2007)

How is your dog? I had a dog get into some once. I did not even know we had it around. Evidently, the exterminator left it here.  I fortunately caught him while he was eating it and gave him some hydrogen peroxide to make him throw it up. That did not work so I took him to the emergency vet. She gave him something that made him throw it up, but we still put him on Vitamin K for several weeks, actually. It was expensive though. Animals are expensive and routinely give you hear failure.


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## Minelson (Oct 16, 2007)

She has updated on the goat forum...so far so good. And she found some of the rat poison that had been upchucked so hoping it was just one dog and he upchucked most of the poison. They are on Vit K tablets for a month


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

I'm glad the dog is ok. It's important to have no surgery for at least a couple of months too. There was a dog who lived through the rat poison, but died after a spay 6wks later from bleeding. The owner had not informed the clinic of the earlier ingestion, so there was no way to foresee the problem of heavy bleeding without knowing that information. It was an unnecessary loss because the spay would never have been performed at that time if the owner had just given it in the history.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

I had a GP who chewed up (ingested) 5mo supply of frontline a few years back. I had just purchased the 6mo supply and used one on her. She decided she needed the rest too. She was so sick. But the beast lived through it. They do get themselves into trouble at times.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

Somehow mine almost died of spay for that reason but we didn't have poison out. No one did. I went over every where she had been for the past 2 months and questioned everyone and no one had put down poison. Best guess is she ate something that had eaten poison because she is known to catch her own dinner sometimes. More than once I've found her eating a wild rabbit. Luckily I used a rather expensive and very thorough vet for her spay. They caught the problem immediately and actually had to put her under again and close off some blood vessels in the incision. She was there for a week on iv fluids and vit k then vit k at home twice a day for a few weeks. She quite hates vets now though and has to be muzzled to draw blood because she gets snappy about needles going in her leg after the week of IVs.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

akane - any chance your dog is just a bleeder? Some dogs don't clot well due to genetic problems. Just a thought.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

akane said:


> Somehow mine almost died of spay for that reason


I'm glad she made it.


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