Poisoning First Aid for Dogs
The inquisitive nature of dogs has often led to a lot of troubles for them. Apart from deliberate intents dogs may also get poisoned accidentally. Household dogs may suffer from poisoning if they happen to have taken in poisoned baits that are targeted for rodents, ants, slug and snails. These baits are though poisoned but smell and taste good in order to attract the mice and rats. The chemicals that are mainly added to the bait are sodium fluroracetate, arsenic, lead, zinc phosphate, phosphorus, arsenic, metaldehyide and warfarin.
Your dog may also get poisoned if it comes in contact with the organophosphates and carbamates that are part of the constituents of the de-worming agents, garden sprays and flea eradicators. Most of the insecticides containing the chlorinated hydrocarbons, antifreeze, petroleum products acidic and corrosive cleaning products like the house hold cleaners, solvents and drain openers can cause great damage to the mouth, esophagus and the walls of the intestines. In fact, many of them are strong enough to bring about death of the pet even if they are taken in very small amounts. You may try out the following fist aid steps to in case you suspect your pet to have consumed poison.
The very first step that you are recommended to take is to contact the local poison center. Induce your dog to vomit but you are advised not to instigate your dog to vomit if it happens to have been poisoned with acids, alkali, strong household cleaning agents, solvents or any petroleum products. It would worsen the condition of the dog if it tries to vomit after swallowing a sharp object or tranquilizers. Tranquilizers have components that prevent vomiting.
To stop the absorption of the poison coat the intestinal tract with charcoal. Make a mixture that contains 1 gram of activated charcoal to every 4 cc of water. The dog has to be fed with one tea spoon full of the charcoal mixture for every two pounds of the total body weight. Give you dog Glauber’s salt or Milk of Magnesia in the proportion of one teaspoon per 10 pounds of weight and one teaspoon per 5 pounds of body weight of your pet respectively.
To speed up the elimination of the poison you may administer good laxatives to your dog. Make sure of not using the laxatives that are generally used for humans except the Milk of Magnesia.