Dog ate raisins

[Appin]

Wondering if anyone has any experience? We have a very food focused, scavenging and continually scrounging cocker spaniel. A few months ago he ate a mince pie and we took him to the vet within the hour, in case of raisin poisoning, and they made him sick and gave him activated charcoal. It was an expensive lesson to learn!

Yesterday he got into my lunch bag from work which was inside another bag. There was some evidence of chewed plastic wrappers, but I couldn't remember what had been in the bag exactly. I began to wonder if there had been some yogurt raisins, but really wasn't sure. Kept an eye on him, he was pooing and drinking normally and seemed fine.

This afternoon, about 24 hours after eating the stuff in the bag, he did a poo and part of it was very clearly a yogurt raisin wrapper. So it looks like he did eat raisins! I've given him some charcoal biscuits and he's continuing to poo reasonably normally (maybe a bit loose), has eaten three of his own meals since the raisins, and seems otherwise fine.

Everything I've read online says that raisin toxicity would be vomiting and diarrhoea within the first 12-24 hours, so I'm just wondering if any one has had experience of this with their dog, and if we still need to take any action.

All advice appreciated!

That's not true. For a small puppy 3 can be for a cocker it's more like 15.

Great news! 🥰

We have had to stop buying anything with raisins in and have stopped buying grapes because of our cocker

I've never known a dog so determined to eat food he shouldn't have!

It's such a worry isn't it, our 40kg dog ate 3 raisins and I called the vet straight away, he'd managed to get some wedding cake but I grabbed it quickly. Vet said to bring him straight in and they made him sick. Cost nearly £800 as was out of hours. They even said about keeping him in overnight on an IV to ensure there were no lasting effects.

We had a trip 2 weeks later with our pug eating Toblerone.

I have stopped trying to 2nd guess stuff with the dogs, the Internet for pet medical advice is dreadful, when I googled about my pugs red pupil it really played down the seriousness and I almost left it till the morning to call the vet but because he is a pug and they are notorious for eye problems I ignored it. Turns out it was a detatched retina and he had to have his eye removed.

I think now i will be going to the vets for any minor thing as I'm so paranoid. Knowing my 2 it won't be the last time I have to visit for them due to stuff they have eaten though. The pug has eaten a poisonous caterpillar before which was quite traumatic.

That is not what my vet said, my 40kg malamute puppy ate 3, we said to the vet we thought it was 1 or 2 and they said he still needed to be treated as one could be fatal.

I understand you are probably saying this to reassure the OP which I get as its likely he'll be fine but it's worth mentioning that this really isn't the case for all dogs so always worth seeking treatment. Did you not get treatment at all? That seems like a big chance to take.

With larger dogs they tend to be able to tolerate these less than ideal foods better. My old collie ate mince pies every Christmas to no ill effects (nobody talked about raisins being a problem then) current ddog has had some raisins for sure and also eats chocolate, onions and other bad foods, no problems. 20+ kg does make a difference to the toxicity and some dogs just are more sensitive than others

It's best to try to avoid but panicking isn't required

There isn't a "safe" number of raisins for dogs - they're not like chocolate in the sense that dogs can tolerate a small amount of theobromine before becoming unwell - and the larger the dog, the higher the tolerance.

Some dogs aren't affected by raisins, a few are - the issue is, you don't know which category yours falls into until it's too late, so vets treat all cases the same - which is to make your dog vomit ASAP.