In the last post you gained some background on Tinny, affectionately dubbed “The Bad Dog” in our house. Realizing that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy of course, we only call her that behind her back. So what was it that finally took us to our Tinny limit?
First you should know it’s been a very busy year for us. Ryan and I got married, planned a wedding ceremony 500 miles away, house-hunted, sold our house, bought a new one and moved in, traveled to Alaska, British Virgin Islands and lots of points in between. Tinny has actually managed to mellow a bit over this past year, even with all the upheaval.
But as we started packing to move to our new home, the anxiety overcame her. After two hours out one night I came home to find, in addition to lots of other things, the chewed up remnants of a box of Unsweetened Baker’s Chocolate. Tinny had consumed 8 oz. of it. According to research we did online we determined that, not only is this the most toxic form of chocolate to dogs, the toxicity is measured by ounces of chocolate consumed to weight of the dog. From reading we determined that Tinny had eaten enough of the tasty squares to kill a dog 30 pounds heavier than her own weight.
The emergency vet directed me to induce vomiting with hydrogen peroxide, then bring her straight to them. But I think people underestimate the constitution of Tinny’s tummy. She drank the peroxide like it was a glass of fine champagne to wash down the chocolate, thank you very much. So off we went to the emergency clinic. They started an IV to get things moving (and did it ever), followed by placing activated charcoal into her tummy to absorb as much of the contents as possible.
She came out looking like a suicide survivor – haggard, red, swollen eyes and swaying a little in between bouts of violent shaking, with charcoal smeared around her face, neck and abdomen (apparently she fought that part). They wanted to keep her but we refused and took her home with us. As expected, once we got her home she calmed down and the shaking subsided.
From there we just had to watch her for signs of a seizure. She actually did really well, until my discovery the next morning….
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