One happy boy and one lively dog!

Yup, the dog is fine! Yay!! We had a phonecall from the vet the other day to say that her blood test was negative for Warfarin (which is the drug in the poison). Yay for washing soda is all I can say. She would almost certainly be dead if we hadn't been able to make her vomit it up so fast.

It's made me think a bit. Not just about keeping poisons and chemicals safe but more about using them in the first place.

I was having a chat to someone who's dog was also poisoned by brodifacoum. She never saw him eat it, or eat a dead animal that had been poisoned, and she doesn't use the bait herself. The first thing she noticed was the dog staggering, so off to the vet who knew exactly what it was. All that night the dog was fed Vitamin K and the owner was told that he was going to die. The only thing that saved him was the vet being able to find a blood donor. Then he was still very sick and needed Vit K for the next 3 months.

My thoughts are surrounding the animals we poison with it. What would it be like to die from internal haemorrhaging? I can't think it would be a pleasant way to go. I know rats and possums are major pests in our forests and I understand that in a major control operation poison might be the only real effective way. But for me at home, I think I'll be using instant kill traps from now on. Fast, effective and a bit more humane.

Oh, and the stuff on my son's face?? That's a drawn on Moko, or Maori tattoo. They were celebrating Matariki, or the Maori New Year at Daycare.

A Day of Flukes and Lessons

Today was a day of flukes and lessons, hopefully not harsh lessons, but we won't know probably until tomorrow.

Fluke One: The puppy found some rat bait. We don't exactly know how but we had some out at the land a while ago and we didn't use it all. We had it in an unmarked bag, on top of an old chiller. But when the builders cleared everything out of the shed, we think they just chucked it on the rubbish pile, not looking in the bag first.

Fluke Two: I saw the puppy eating the poison. I had gone outside to take Madam-almost-two to the dunny and there was Emma, the puppy, munching into her second fist-sized bag of bait. Of course I stopped her from eating the rest, but to have caught her eating it at all was lucky.

Fluke Three: My Father-in-Law was out there with us. Not a usual thing, but he was helping us paint.

Fluke Four: He had driven his own truck there, not caught a ride with my DH.

F.I.L is an ex-possumer and he still does trapping and poisoning as a bit of a sideline. He was the one who gave us the bait in the first place. He knew exactly what to do and he carries the remedy in his truck all the time. Washing soda crystals forced down Emma's throat made her heave up the bright green bait in about two seconds flat.

So now we watch and wait. The remedy is Vitamin K and to be certain, I'll get some for her tomorrow.

Lessons learnt:

1. Never use poison if you can avoid it. If you don't have it, then you never have these problems. I always try to be organic as possible and this just gives me another reason for doing so.


2. If you do have poisons, always keep them in a clearly labelled container and preferably in a locked cabinet. What we did was just asking for trouble and I should probably be very thankful we weren't shoving washing soda down one of the kid's throats.


3. Know the remedy or treatment for all poisons you use or have in the house - and yes, even dishwasher powder can have devestating effects.