Dog at mince pies

[CyprusRescueDog]

😔 I was out shopping and the little bugger ate a whole box of mini mince pies as my husband wasn't supervising. This is despite him eating an entire pack of butter only a month ago which cost us £130.....
So anyway for mince pies he has to not only vomit but also stay in for 48 hrs and it's going to cost £1500. Im so pissed off with my husband - he knows he's a thief. The dog lived on the streets - he can't help his instincts. I'm just gutted as we could really do without this just before Xmas 😢

Yeah, it's the size of the dog and the amount that they ate that's the issue.

There's what's called a lethal dose and it's based on mg/kg of the ingested poison. I think the problem with raisens is the delay in causing the kidney damage. I'm a layperson, so anyone can correct me!

Our terrier ate a cooked onion, launched herself up a sofa, caught the onion off a plate well out of reach whilst in freefall...I feel your pain.

With raisins, they can’t calculate a the toxic dose as they can for chocolate.

With chocolate (and most other toxic foodstuffs) dogs are all similarly sensitive, so it’s a straightforward dose to body weight calculation.

But for raisins (and all the rest of the grape family) the sensitivity varies hugely between dogs, so you can have large dogs getting serious or fatal kidney damage from a tiny dose, and little dogs munching through lots with no apparent ill effects. Sensitivity can even, it’s thought, vary over time in the same dog.

So vets always treat all ingestion as a potentially toxic dose.

You can’t wait to see if your dog becomes unwell, as symptoms = damage

Here endeth the lesson

With apologies to all those who knew all that anyway. I would add something to that apology about sucking eggs, but that’s something it’s ok for dogs to do!

Yes we've just chosen not to have stuff like that in the house after a couple of dropped grape/malt loaf situations. Now when we go somewhere with raisins and grapes, DC think they've won the lottery

If your practice use an external emergency/out of hours provider like VetsNow, then yes that is the usual practice - VetsNow do not have their own premises, rather they use another practices premises, so your dog has to return to your practice in the day.
Some practices do their own out of hours work, meaning that the patients don’t have this transportation dance very day!

That reminds me of a DCat we used to have. The only safe place to put anything was in the microwave because it was the only receptacle that he had never figured out how to open.

We got a breadbin after DDog's scoffing of the Welsh cakes that DH swore he'd put in a safe place. Anything with raisins has to go in there.

Butter, on the other hand, is a constant battle.

We have a spaniel who has had three trips to the vet for things he shouldn't have eaten. We don't buy anything containing raisins or grapes any more, at all. I'm always delighted when I visit people and I'm offered a mince pie!

Hope he's much better soon, poor wee guy.

This is a salutary lesson for me, so thank you. Ddog is an ex-street dog and will forage if given the chance. I will have to make very sure she can't get hold of mince pies or Christmas pud. So far, the only things she's eaten that she shouldn't are two library books - she's cost me £20!

Our labrador knocked 5 mince pies off the bird table and scoffed them when he was a puppy. He was quite sick, then re-ate the sick a d threw them up again (only then did we realise he had done it) but he lived to tell the tale. Little bugger is now almost 5, and regrets nothing.

Over his life he has also eaten and 3 face masks, a golf glove, a huge dropped cheese sandwich, and every variety of animal poo you can imagine. Get a dog, they say. It will be fun!

My dog is the same (despite being highly trained - see username). I only have a small kitchen which makes it very hard to always put things out of his reach and I've had plenty of emergency trips to the vets. You have my sympathy.

As long as he's nor had any incidents of this kind of thing prior to taking out the insurance, it'll likely be fine.

Yes this is standard where emergency provision is provided by another surgery and the animal is well enough to travel.

At my vets, they have an animal ambulance and one of the nurses drives over first thing and collects any animals and brings them back to our surgery, they vets and nurses treat them, update care plans etc and then return them via the ambulance at the end of the day for the overnight vets to continue the care.

Thanks everyone for the sympathy, understanding and takes of woe of your own dogs idiocy! Off to go and move him shortly. Feel sad that he will be so pleased to see us and then we will just be dropping him off. Poor lamb

Just bear in mind - the vet may well pay up, but every time you make a claim, especially expensive ones, you can expect the premiums to go up each year. We had a dog who suffered pancreatitis, which required a few hospital stays before it was brought under control. Although it was one of those policies where the insurer said they'd never exclude a health condition after a claim, the premiums became exorbitant eventually.

Almost certainly insurance will pay I have put through many insurance claims for this and had them paid.

I have an excellent scavenger (on steroids), sometimes accidents will happen - we've had to go to the vets a couple of times to make him sick. I'd say learn from this, you now know your dog can get at high shelves so either everything in cupboards/breadbins/microwave or he's not allowed in the kitchen unattended, or maybe both!

Don't worry we've had lots of discussions about hiding foods now. Poor boy has to stay in tonight too. I miss him

Oh poor lad. I bet he feels rotten

How do you plan to monitor kidney function at home?

bearing in mind that once there are physical symptoms of renal failure it’s too late and the dog will likely die?

they keep them in to give fluids to protect the kidneys and monitor bloods for the first signs of renal failure.

can you do that at home?

Oh I'm so sorry this has happened just before Christmas. Glad your dog is OK though.
Can't believe how judgemental people are on mumsnet at times.

If it makes you feel better, weve had several incidents like this, also with our ex street dog. Last year she ate a WHOLE, dark (obviously) Terry's chocolate orange. This summer she did a punnet of grapes (had to stay in for 48 hours)... and this Christmas she ate 20 chocolates by stealing our dogsitter's son's advent calendar.

She's a nightmare and a thief and it takes one lapse of judgement or one open-door

I really feel for you. Typically my dog always commits her crimes after 6.30pm when the emergency vet (and fees) kick in 🙄

I hope your Christmas improves! Xxx

Things happen op, our dog managed to get an empty canister of my sons bloody salbutamol inhaler. So that was 1k plus in vet bills - poisons call, overnight stay etc he really wasn’t a well dog. He had it for all of 2 seconds before partner made him drop it, that little time and an empty container almost killed him. No idea where he got it from as I knew they are dangerous so old ones are disposed of carefully, was none too impressed hut glad we caught it early and it was an empty one He’s also a sock fiend, tries to steal them of the airer etc but just shreds them, our old retriever would eat anything too we had to be so careful. Learn from it and move on, all you can do, (I was so angry with myself for a long time, that he’d got It and been so unwell) but thankfully our vets are fab.

Can’t you just put a baby gate across the kitchen doorway.