Dogs and Vitamins Just Don't Mix

My dog seriously overdosed last night. Thank the Lord, animal poison control, and the emergency veterinarian that she is still alive. After work I plopped my purse, briefcase, and lunch bag on the kitchen floor intending to get back to them later. I went upstairs to work and my daughter and dog were downstairs. Later my girl comes up with vitamins in her hand and my days of the week plastic pill case from my purse. Apparently the dog got into my purse, how she unzipped it must have been tricky. It does have a big strap on the zipper. I imagine she stood on it and pulled on the big strap with her teeth and got it halfway open. Anyway, when she handed me both things I looked up my dog ate my vitamins on the internet. I found many incidents where dogs stole vitamins and were fine, so I didn’t worry. Three hours later she couldn’t walk, was completely aggressive wouldn’t let us near her, and was like wheezy and barking intermittently but a bark of pain, nothing I’ve ever hear before.

I called the emergency vet because it was late at night, they told me to call animal poison control. I called them back and said I couldn’t get through, so they said either way we had to call from there or from my house. Animal poison control charges $35 for the phone call. For my $35 they told me to go to the veterinarian and gave me a case number. After calling neighbors for help, because I wouldn’t get her in her kennel because she kept biting at me. We finally wrapped her gently in a blanket and got her in. Little did I know one of the main reasons she was so violent is because she was blind. When she got in her cage, I kept saying it’s like she can’t see. She was hallucinating barking at the walls of the kennel, barking at things that weren’t there. It was the saddest thing I’d ever heard or seen. My daughter was crying, to dog was just making noises I’ve never heard an animal make.

Finally we get to the veterinarian, who I’d spoken to by now two times on the phone. When we get there they leave her in her kennel for a while. My neighbor, daughter and I confirm that she can’t see. Now the veterinarian who is supposed to know what to do, I’m thinking, doesn’t. So they have to call poison control and talk to them. They tell them what to do to help the dog. One of my vitamins is 5HTP which is tryptophan, like in turkeys. Apparently the dog had overdosed on serotonin. The vitamin B12 and multivitamin which were the other pills she ate she would eventually eliminate. They poison control told the veterinarian what to do, so they finally took her out back to help her. They came back out with an estimate that I could not pay. I explained that to them and they did the bare minimum for her, which was the medicine the poison control suggested and a medicine to calm her down. They had gotten her calm, so they didn’t want to give her fluids which is what I thought they should do. But what do I know. I figured because when I did get her outside when she was just kinda sleepy before she got really bad she was licking snow, but she wouldn’t drink water. She wouldn’t eat anything either, which is what I thought would help her absorb some of the vitamins she took.

We got out of the veterinarians about a little after midnight, and they did want to keep her because she was still hallucinating at that time. I called the vet at 6:30 am because I couldn’t sleep anyway. I was sick with worry. I didn’t want my daughter to lose her best buddy. Even if her best buddy won’t stop eating things she shouldn’t. At 6:30 am they said that she could see! The neurological effects of the pills she ate had gone away between the medicine they gave and the time she spent there. They said though that she was throwing herself against her kennel whenever someone walked by and was so aggressive they couldn’t do anything with her. I took that as a sign she was better. Since we were in the middle of a blizzard at that time of the morning, at around 9:30 my neighbor who said she loves to drive in the snow and drove us down to get her. They kept taking about her aggression and I was worried that she had permanent brain damage, and she would stay aggressive like she’d been the night before. When they brought her out in her kennel, my daughter and I opened the door, and out came our dog, normal, a bit sedate however, with tail wagging and tongue licking hello. Thank goodness. They are going to recommend a trainer for her, and we’ll see about that, but for now thank goodness she is home, she slept on a pillow most of the day. We gave her water right away and fed her some brown rice. She is lying down again and I think everything is alright. My daughter is ecstatic that she didn’t lose her best friend. Me I didn’t think I cared that much, until I saw her last night. No animal should ever suffer that way. Please be more careful with your purse or your vitamins than I was. She is only 35 pounds and she ate five days of my vitamins, and I am well we’ll just say well over 35 pounds.

Dogs and vitamins just don’t mix.