What to do if your dog is poisoned

Since dogs have no ability to identify food, they often get poisoned in daily life. Moreover, some dogs may die before they are sent to the veterinary station due to accidentally ingesting pesticides or highly toxic drugs. Therefore, this requires dog owners to be able to master some emergency measures for dogs in case of emergencies and open a channel for the dog's life after the dog is poisoned.

In fact, as long as dog owners pay more attention to learning some methods of rescuing dogs from poisoning, they don’t have to be at a loss when their dogs are poisoned and have not received medical treatment. For this reason, this article introduces several emergency treatment steps for dogs after poisoning for your reference.

Steps/Methods

Induce vomiting: It is mainly used for early first aid of poisoning. Generally, 1% to 2% copper sulfate solution is used for oral administration. Concentrated saline or light soapy water can also be used to induce vomiting. If conditions permit, apormorphine (0.07 mg/kg) can be injected subcutaneously. Do not induce vomiting if coma or convulsions occur.

Gastric lavage: Thorough gastric lavage within 2 to 4 hours after poisoning is most effective, but some drugs may remain in the stomach for more than 4 hours, and some drugs are extremely difficult to eliminate, so gastric lavage is still necessary. Gastric catheter infusion and gastric lavage are often used.

Enema: The enema solution should be 0.1% potassium permanganate or ordinary warm water, and the amount of liquid each time should be 20 to 40 ml per kilogram of body weight.

Catharsis: To accelerate the excretion of intestinal contents and reduce absorption, inorganic salt laxatives such as sodium sulfate or magnesium sulfate can be used, 1 gram per kilogram of body weight, dissolved in 20 to 50 ml of water, and administered by gavage or enema. If the poison is not fat-soluble, oil laxatives can also be used.

Cleaning: Wangbiao Pet Network recommends that to remove toxins from the skin and mucous membranes, the dog's coat should be washed repeatedly with plenty of clean water, vinegar or soapy water (not suitable for use when poisoning occurs by inhalation of dichlorvos), and then dried with a towel.

Oxygen inhalation: Most poisons can cause breathing difficulties, and in severe cases, death by suffocation. Oxygen inhalation can relieve the condition and promote the excretion of toxins.

The above are some of the first aid measures that you need to take after a dog is poisoned, in order to provide enough time to save the dog's life. Here, we need to remind everyone that after the dog shows symptoms of poisoning, the methods mentioned above are only temporary delays or reduce the harm of the poison to the dog's life. The most direct method is to recommend that you send the dog to a pet hospital for treatment in time.