To be angry at DH

[ThreeApples]

It’s been a rough few days over Xmas as we have all been unwell (DH, DD aged 2, and myself 19 weeks preg), plus hosting in-laws and my fam for 2 nights.

The 3 of us are still unwell. I had a midwives’ appt this morning and then needed to go to A&E due to shortness of breath. DH was looking after DD and dog. Get a phone call whilst I’m in A&E from DH to say dog has got hold of raisin bar that DD hadn’t eaten, and ingested it. Now, I don’t have such bars in the house (we do have raisins but are super careful with them). It turns out MIL has brought them and instead of DH checking whether we want them, he’s just put them in the snack cupboard.

Anyway now DH has taken dog (and DD had to be woken from her nap to accompany them) to vets at a cost of £300 and dog needs a 2 night stay at an animal hospital at a cost of £1.5k. I get back from A&E and DH has stormed off upstairs saying I’m ’not being supportive and that I ‘blame him’. I’ve tried to say it’s just an accident and he’s tired/unwell, but I do the lion’s share of looking after DD plus dog and nothing like this has ever happened.

AIBU to be annoyed?!

What symptoms did dog show to warrant a bill that large? I had a dog that one year ate a extra large bar of fruit and nut, and showed no side effects at all.

Raisins are not like chocolate.

When a dog eats chocolate you can do a cocoa to dog weight calculation to see if they have eaten dangerous amounts.

Raisins are not like that. 95% of dogs can eat raisins (but shouldn't). 5% have a terrible reaction to them and death is a real possibility. The problem is... you don't know which % your dog will be in.

So any dog that eats raisins need emergency treatment, just in case they are in the 5%.

If you wait until you see symptoms, it is too late. Kidney failure has begun.

What breed of dog? I mean I know it's not ideal, but three or four raisins in a cereal bar eaten by a labrador, I wouldn't bother about it.

I think being annoyed is not just reasonable but expected. This is a super annoying thing to have happened. But I'm not sure it's your husband's fault. He didn't know there were raisin bars in the house, so presumably wasn't being careful about it. It's just very bad luck that they were in the house, exceptionally, on his watch. Had you been around it might have happened on your watch too, because you also wouldn't have been expecting it!

Rage at the universe... together.

I daresay your M-in-L meant no harm, but she does sound a bit pushy. Many people do not know that raisins can be fatal to dogs. But I am sure it was an accident and blaming people is a bit pointless. The bill is horrendous, though. This I always feel is the result of allowing insurance companies to market pet insurance: vets think they can charge outrageous sums because people are insured. (It's how the US health system works, too, which equally horrifies me, esp when I know that Jeremy Hunt would like such a system here instead of the NHS - sorry, complete non sequitor). If anyone is to blame - and I doubt it, one of my dogs ate a half pound of butter off the kitchen table once (I was baking) and it cost us a couple of thousands with him on a drip for two days - it is M-in-L.

Raisins can be fatal.

Oh and everyone saying "my dog was fine" etc. As others have said, some dogs have a toxicity reaction and some don't but there isn't any way to know which yours is. It doesn't correlate to breed etc.

Better safe than sorry with beloved pets surely.

https://www.msdvetmanual.com/toxicology/food-hazards/raisin-and-grape-toxicosis-in-dogs

As a Labrador owner, I have read a number of conflicting reports on various food toxicity.
It is unlikely that there were a huge amount of raisins in the raisin bar, but it’s entirely possible that OPs dog may react negatively. Vets don’t know at the early stage.
That said, OP, I would be asking what the vet planned for the 48 hour stay.
Putting the dog on a drip to flush the kidneys, while a vet team monitor him? Seems reasonable.
Having the dog in a cage in case he does react badly ? Seems like a waste of you or your insurance company’s money.
So I would be asking that. Especially if it’s not my regular vet.

But I would cut your DH some slack. Dogs do this sort of crap.

Was the dog actually ill? If not, the vet wasn’t necessary. In times past, dogs used to eat all types of crap and scraps.🙄

You do know that the ‘raisins are poison for dogs’ line is a ruse put out by vets to drum up business? Get the poor dog home!

@ItIsBoth

'holding the fort'???? Looking after his DD & dog??

FFS I despair.

'it could happen to anyone'. Yep any fucking incompetent.

Seems like majority of people are incompetent then

I've researched this dog Vs raisin/grapes issue to within an inch of my life after our dog ate some grapes growing in the garden. We thought we'd picked them all but obviously not. We needed an emergency vets visit. That was what the vet told us on the phone that was needed, so not being vets ourselves, we didn't think we were better placed to judge what was dangerous. All they did was make the dog vomit thought, and we had some activated charcoal to give them, so not as expensive as an overnight stay. That does seem overkill, but who knows, maybe it was necessary. The vet told us that for some dogs, even a very small quantity can cause kidney failure, and by the time they show symptoms it's too late. Maybe they were lying, but we didn't want to risk it.

How did the raisin snack get left on the table? Do all the adults in the house (in this case MIL and DH) know not to leave raisins lying around? I know my parents, ILs and DH know not to do that so I'd be fuming tbh if that happened. Did DH know your MIL had bought raisin snacks into the house? With young children, and knowing what they're like, I'd have just binned them. Why didn't your DH do that? I'd be asking lots of questions about the chain of events, and if DH was negligent, I'd be angry too.

It’s a miniature dachshund and she only weighs 4.5kg so although I agree unlikely to have done any harm, there is still a chance she could be really unwell.

My dislike for MIL is long-spanning. Just snide comments, very manipulative and passive aggressive. You’re right, gifting food certainly isn’t horrible…it’s just I know the sentiment is never ‘they’ll like this’ it’s more ‘I don’t want this’.

He shouldn't need to ask, he should bloody know what's NOT safe to have in the cupboard with a toddler that feeds/leaves things around that the dog might get hold of.

FFS why is he getting a 'pass' on this??

alternatively stop being thread police & stay on topic!!

myob

@ThreeApples

Accidents do happen

bit i think there's 🤔 to this,

Your attitude is telling, you are the one who does the lions 🦁 share of work,

And once in a blue moon your husband is expected to hold fort at home and he balls that up,

I've got a feeling this is something that happens on the rare occasion he has to step up to the plate and be a proper dad type of thing?
Reading behind the lines

I feel for you, OP. I had to take DH to hospital for surgery and my MIL bought a 6 pack of mince pies. DDog got hold of the pack and gobbled all 6… £500 vet bill (I spotted he had eaten them when I got back at midnight so it was the OOH vet fee that hit the hardest). My dog was fine, luckily (greedy Labrador) but I was so angry with MIL as we never have raisins in the house as a) we don’t like them and b) my dog is a terror at eating anything and everything. She refused to pay the £200 excess (managed to claim £300 back from insurance), as she insisted it was my fault that my dog snatched them from the worktop. Hope you are feeling better soon.

Yes, I agree, he should have known that in a house with a small child and a dog, raisin snacks are too risky. Just the fact that the OPs first thought was that he should have checked, rather than shown initiative and binned them himself, suggests that he's a bit useless.

Quoting this in the hope more people might see it...

RAISINS ARE NOT CHOCOLATE!

The toxic principles are completely different!
As a vet, I know my own dog is ok with raisins because the first time a child left mince pies in her reach while I was out, I didn't know for several hours. By that point, if she was going to be ill, I would have known. For some dogs, one raisin is too man. For others, like mine, they can snack on them with no issue.

Chocolate is completely different. You can work out how much is too much.

Having said all that, I do think inducing vomiting and then 2 days hospitalisation is probably on the overly cautious side.

This... Dogs can react badly to raisins, but alot also won't have any ill effects, and I wouldn't have been rushing mine to the vets for this! My dog (toy breed too) once ate an entire large bag of dark chocolate raisins that came through the post. We didn't know until DH said the parcel was meant to have arrived 4 days before and we then found the empty packet buried in ddogs bed 🤣 needless to say, he was absolutely fine, and since then, he has stolen and consumed so many things dogs "shouldn't have" with no illness (half a cooked chicken bones and all, chocolate, lots of, grapes, raw onion)... Apart from the batteries from the remote, which I did take him to the vets for as we couldn't find one battery and needed to know if he'd swallowed it! He hadn't, and was fine despite a bit of acid burn on his tongue. These things happen and I don't think you can blame your DH for an accident that happened when he was otherwise preoccupied.

Dogs are opportunists by nature - don't be so sure that it won't happen to you one day.

Your DH did the right thing by taking your dog to the vet but I'm surprised they're insisting on a two night stay if she's been sick and everything has come up. My own dog has been at the vets for this before - he just needed an injection - once he'd vomited everything the vet was happy for him to go home.

Raisins do need the sickness jab though, they're not like chocolate in that respect.

Anyone can make mistakes of course, but also many people do foolish things that could easily be avoided if they paid attention to their families needs. & didn't write it off as 'wife whittering on'

Please don't peddle this shit.

The vet was absolutely necessary. In a small percentage of dogs, raisins can cause kidney failure (and death). Once they're showing symptoms, it's too late to treat it.

Yes, you'll hear stories of dogs eating entire fruit cakes and surviving, but that's not because raisins are safe, it's because they were lucky not to be that small percentage affected by them.

As PP said, you don't know if your dog will react badly until it's too late, so all dogs should have the injection in case. Chocolate is different in that there is a safe amount based on weight and the type consumed.

If my MIL had that kind of attitude, I don't think I'd have them back in my house.