[salazark]

This thread might belong in "sick and injured" or "health and diet" or even "our Yorkie Brothers and Sisters" because it's not about a Yorkie but I'd like as many people as possible to see it. Admin - if you feel it should be moved, then please move it.

Last Saturday night I had a friend over to watch football. I took her home at about 12:45am. I put Sadie and Beemer in their playpen but I left our small lab mix (Marley) downstairs because I wasn't going to be gone long. I was gone less than ten minutes, but when I got home she had gone on a raid of the pantry. She was on the sofa with raisin boxes all around her. Two were empty. I knew grapes and raisins were bad for dogs, but I had no idea to what extent. I put her to bed, expecting yucky surprises to greet me in the morning, put on my pajamas and went to bed. I got on the internet to do a little research about raisins and what I read scared me. I called the emergency animal hospital and they advised bringing her in. We got their approximately an hour after she ate what I thought was two 1 1/2 oz. boxes of raisins. When I got to the clinic they induced vomiting. They said that there were two more empty boxes in her stomach as well as a stomach full of raisins. She had apparently a total of 6oz of raisins (49 pound dog). The vet told us that it was definitely enough to kill her and that we were very fortunate that we brought her in so quickly. She said that once symptoms start, it is often too late.
She also told us that not all dogs react toxically to raisins but there is no way to know which ones will and won't. Raisins can cause acute renal failure in a dog, often with necrosis of the kidneys. They kept her in the hospital and gave her activated charcoal as well as IV fluids to flush her out. They and my vet followed the standard protocol of 48 hours on IV fluids and another 24 hours of observation with blood tests for kidney function every 24 hours. She never got sick but she just got home late this afternoon. We have to take her back for one more blood test on Friday. If everything is still good at that point we will be able to relax and believe that she is going to be fine. That's the other thing with the raisins - they don't always react immediately.

The reason I'm posting this is just to get the word out on how serious this really is. If 6 oz of raisins can kill a 50 pound dog, imagine how little it would take for a 4-5 pound yorkie! The other thing I wanted everyone to understand is how important it is to react quickly. What if I had just gone on to sleep assuming that it was just going to give Marley a tummy ache? Or - like so many of us do - wait for symptoms before reacting? It scares me just to think about it.

By the way - I'm calling this Marley's $1,500 meal of raisins.

Thanks for listening!
Karen