Oh my gosh..I hope Chewie is ok, My bf smokes
and I told him that he has to keep his cigarettes in a food container with a snap lid, and use one of those portable ash trays with a lock on.
I will be praying for Chewie, you are probably at the emergency vet already but just in case this is what I found on the net about cigarettes.
The toxic dose for nicotine in pets is 20-100 mg. A cigarette contains 9-30 mg of nicotine depending on the type of cigarette; while a cigarette butt contains about 25% of the nicotine of the original cigarette despite its deceptively small amount of tobacco. (Smoking seems to concentrate some of the nicotine in the tail end of the cigarette.) Cigars can contain up to 40 mg. Chewing tobacco carries 6-8 mg per gram while the gum is 2-4 mg per piece and patches 8.3-114 mg. Smoking a cigarette yields only 0.5-2 mg of nicotine but eating one is a different ballgame as all of the nicotine becomes available for absorption into the body.
Some good news is that nicotine is not absorbed directly in the acid environment of the stomach; the nicotine must move past the stomach into the small intestine for absorption. One of the first things nicotine does in the body is stimulate the vomit center of the brain, thus inducing vomiting which may save the patient’s life if there is more cigarette material in the stomach.
SYMPTOMS OF NICOTINE POISONING
Signs begin as quickly as one hour post-ingestion. Symptoms include:
* Tremors
* Auditory and Visual Hallucinations
* Excitement
* Vomiting and Diarrhea
* Twitching possibly progressing to Seizures
* Racing heart rate but slow heart rate with small doses
* High blood pressure but at higher doses there is a circulatory collapse
Nicotine Poisoning in Pets