We have recently had a letter published in The Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, discussing our experience with hops toxicosis in dogs. We published an abstract on 13 cases in 2019, and since then we have had 6 additional cases with outcome information. One dog remained well after [...]

With over 8,000 calls handled this year, 2021 has been the busiest year for Animal PoisonLine. The continued challenges faced by vet practices throughout the pandemic have led to more referrals to APL, allowing our triage service to be put to full use. In 82% of cases handled by APL [...]

With colds (and viruses!) rife at this time of the year, many of us may have preparations on hand to alleviate the associated symptoms. Many preparations are readily available (tablets, capsules, drops, sachets, sprays and syrups) and these may contain several active constituents. The types of drugs commonly encountered are [...]

We would like to wish our VPIS members and all those working in the veterinary profession a very happy new year.  Here we are at the beginning of 2022 still in the grips of the pandemic which we hoped we would see the back of last year.  The last 2 [...]

Another potential Christmas food hazard are grapes and their dried fruits (sultanas, raisins and currants). This includes Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and mince pies. Ingestion of grapes or their dried fruits can cause renal failure in dogs but this only happens in a minority of cases. Not all dogs are [...]

A recent Knowledge Summary published in RCVS Veterinary Evidence discusses the difference in recovery time when using different types of lipid emulsion therapy in cats with permethrin toxicosis. Soybean oil-based and ClinOleic IVLE therapies can be used safely as adjuvant treatments to reduce time to recovery in cats with permethrin [...]

Activated charcoal is an adsorbent commonly used in the management of both human and veterinary poisoning. Charcoal is treated to produce activated charcoal, a finely powdered material with a huge surface area which is capable of binding to a variety of chemicals; this relies mainly on weak intermolecular forces and [...]

Christmas is associated with an excess of food and top of the list is chocolate. This of course means an increase in cases of accidental ingestion in pets, particularly dogs. We see a huge increase in call numbers relating to chocolate at this time of year – around 20% of [...]

These novelty items are readily available and often chewed/ingested by animals around Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ night. They consist of polyethylene tubing filled with a liquid mixture that gives off a light of various colours. There are normally two components to the mixture, a luminescer (mostly dibutyl phthalate), and an [...]