Just how dangerous are raisins?

[ticklemepinker]

This isn’t an emergency, it’s more idle curiousity about an incident that happened long before I knew raisins are toxic to dogs.

we were having a picnic on a beach, and two out of control dogs came bounding up and scarfed at least a quarter of a fruit cake.

i was mighty cross (home made and we had to chop loads off where they’d bitten chunks off) and it’s only now, years and years later, that I’ve given any thought to the dogs.

what do you reckon? I think the recipe uses about a kilo of fruit so it will have been quite a lot they ate.

I believe the issue is that a tiny amount could be toxic to one dog, but others might be fine with a massive amount. It's not relevant to the size of the dog either, unlike chocolate. Very specific to the individual so there is no way of knowing if the dog would be alright if they've only eaten a few for example.

My gsd ate 3/4 fruit cake while I was out once. Took her to be made sick at the vets. Quote "I've never seen so many raisins come out of one dog". She's 11 now. But she did go on fluids for the day just incase any of the raisins had been digested, but bloods came back fine over the following days.

The issue is it’s not dose dependent.

there have been cases where big dogs have gone into renal failure after 5 or 6 raisins, and cases where small dogs have been fine.

There’s no way of predicting which dogs will be affected, until you see the signs of renal failure 24-48 hours later. By then it’s too late.

so generally the advice is to treat all dogs as if they have had a toxic amount, as there is no safe dose. So vomiting, charcoal, and iv fluids until kidney tests can be done at 24 and 48 hours to ensure the kidneys are ok.

but it’s not uncommon for dogs to die from raisins, which is why it’s taken seriously.

From what I read, some dogs can eat lots & have zero harm come to them. And nobody even knows why raisins causes any problems in dogs at all. One theory is it's a new chemical used in vineyards, something that didn't exist 30 years ago.

One raisin could cause terrible problems in a big dog and a small dog could eat a mince pie and be fine. It’s not like chocolate where you can work it out based on their weight.

Last Easter DM was looking after DDog and he stole a hot cross bun. He had to spend two days in the vet being made to vomit/put on fluids/charcoal/blood tests. Thank god for insurance!

Not the point... but I'd be mortified if my dog did that. The owners should have massively apologised, raisins or not!

When ddog was a year old she stole 5 mince pies. Didn't realise for days. No ill effects luckily.
When I was a dc out rottweiler ate 8 Easter eggs plus boxes. Lasted years that ddog did!
Some just have cast iron guts ime.
We also have a husky that throughly enjoyed a flip flip one lazy summer's day...
Pink poo galore for days!

As PP have said, it's totally random as to whether a dog is affected, so vets are supposed to make them vomit as a "just in case" thing.

Whereas chocolate is based on the amount of cocoa and theobromine it contains - plus the weight of the dog. So what would be fine for a beagle could kill a chihuahua, and what could make a beagle very sick could be fine for a St Bernard.

Had to sit in the waiting room listening to my now departed darling Spaniel puking up Christmas cake. 🙄

Oh interesting. I was so cross about the loss of my cake (and the total lack of apology from owners) that it has taken me years - and having my own dog - to realise there could have been a problem… don’t even remember if the owners bothered to find out what their dogs has stolen. However annoying they were, I do hope they were ok!

My tiny jrt hoovered up faur quantity of raisins that were spilt on the floor with no effects at all. Give him a dental chew and he has the runs for days. Odd.

*a fair quantity

It seems to be totally random. One raisin might affect a Labrador but a small terrier might scarf down a box of mince pies with no ill effects.

It’s also possible that this has only come to light after the formation of the veterinary poisons unit in 1992, which followed up cases and outcomes and may well have seen a high percentage of dog deaths following raisins, where most individual vets would not see enough cases to show a relationship.

considering dogs die 2 or 3 days post ingestion as well it’s possible no one associated deaths with ingestion, and most poisons act fairly quickly, again until case outcomes were
collected in large numbers.

I don’t know, but when I was a kid (70s), dogs ate all sorts of stuff that they can’t now! I always shared chocolate biscuits and any kind of cake (yes Christmas cake too) with our border collie. He ate everything I ate basically! Nobody knew any better then. I never heard of anyone’s dog dying after chocolate or raisins back then.

It’s random which dogs are affected but you won’t know until too late..
Our lab managed to eat 10 mince pies. We had to get his stomach pumped/charcoal/ a drip. He seemed absolutely fine. I will be far more careful in the future but don’t know whether to come to the conclusion he is in the percentage that is unaffected.

I don’t think people took such drastic actions in the 70s.. but I’m sure dogs died randomly and they would not know the cause.

I recently had to take my dog to the vets to be made sick as he ate something in the garden, presumably dropped by a bird, it was gone before I could identify it... A couple of hours later, I went back outside and noticed part of a mince pie just feet away from where he had grabbed whatever it was earlier....

The vets had him straight in. She told me that around 6% of dogs would experience kidney problems from even a small amount of raisins but there was no way of knowing which dogs would be affected and by the time they start showing symptoms, the kidneys would already be damaged. It wasn't worth the risk so they made him sick, we counted 3 raisins in his vomit so it was definitely the mince pie he had eaten. It's a good job it had broken up or I would never have known what he had eaten.