Horses are a risk of anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning. In over a hundred cases with follow up reported to the VPIS, most horses (>85%) remained well. Less than 10 horses had evidence of coagulopathy; none had significant haemorrhage and all the horses recovered. Few cases of anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning in horses [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Status epilepticus is an emergency that requires rapid and effective treatment to prevent neurological injury and systemic complications of prolonged seizure activity. A number of poisons, such as metaldehyde, tremorgenic mycotoxins and permethrin, can cause prolonged seizures. A recent multi-centre randomised study compared intranasal and intravenous midazolam in dogs with status [...]
The mild, warm wet weather this month lead to lots of enquiries about dogs eating mushrooms and we have had several fatal cases. Many mushrooms just cause gastrointestinal signs but some that are less common, cause delayed (> 6 hours) gastrointestinal signs (which are usually severe), renal and/or liver failure. [...]
Fireworks have six components: fuel (usually charcoal, although phosphorous has been used), oxidising agents (usually nitrates, chlorate or perchlorate), reducing agents (usually sulphur and charcoal), regulators (usually metals), colouring agents (such as barium, copper, calcium, sodium, strontium) and binders (usually dextrin). Ingestion of a used domestic firework is unlikely to [...]
Ingestion of pumpkins including seeds is generally not a concern and may cause mild gastrointestinal upset. These fruits can contain extremely bitter-tasting compounds but they have been bred out of crop varieties. Very occasionally these compounds can occur in cultivated species through mutation, environmental stress or an outcross with a [...]
One of the most important hazards for horses in the autumn is atypical myopathy, a muscle disease with high mortality. It is associated with chronic ingestion of seeds or seedlings of some commonly grown Acer species including sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) and ashleaf maple (box elder, Acer negundo). Sycamore is the most [...]
We receive lots of enquires at this time of year about dogs eating acorns (the fruit of oak) and conkers (the seed of the horse chestnut). With acorns about a quarter of dogs remain well and with conkers about a third of dogs do not develop any signs. With both acorns and conkers, the most [...]
Ropinirole is a full dopamine agonist with high selectivity for dopamine D2-type receptors. A new study examined the effectiveness and ease of administration by owners of ropinirole eyes drops for the induction of emesis in dogs. Most of the dogs (95%) vomited within 30 minutes of administration and the median time to [...]
