Trip to the Vet

Well, where to start?  Terri and I headed out to do some shopping today. Pick up some bottles for the beer that we have brewing, buy a couple of chairs for the front porch and various other activities.  We were only out for about an hour. When came home, Lucy met us at the door.  Her greeting was a bit odd this time!  She was extremely sheepish and acted as if she wanted me to do something for her.  It was as if she were saying, hey- "I don't feel so great."  She was acting in the manner that she acts when she has been into something that she's not suppose to get into.

My "what have you been up too?" alarm went off in my head!"  Sure enough, when I rounded  the corner I found that she had indeed been into something.  There was bits of plastic all over the living room carpet and she was cowering in the corner as if to say "I didn't mean to do it!", please forgive me!  Well, when Terri saw what it was, she made one statement, and that was, "we have to get to Vet now!"  I immediately asked why?  Terri's answer scared me, "Lucy just ate ant bait!"  We couldn't understand how she got a-hold of it, but it was true... Our family member ingested a poison!

We were off like a flash!  I think I broke every speed limit in the conservative community of Germantown, Tennessee getting my dog to the Vet.  Luckily for us, it had just happened fairly shortly before we came home!  We were at the Vet's in about ten minutes of discovery.

At the Vets, they examined her and said she wasn't showing any symptoms of poisoning but we did the right thing by bringing her in straight away!  They set about their work, inducing vomiting and cleaning out her stomach.  They even examined the contents of the upchucked material.  They found the label on the ant bait and discovered that it was a slow acting ingredient.  They also hooked her up to an I.V. to get fluids into her.  Then they said that they needed to observe her for a couple hours.  These were a couple of long hours!

It turns out that Lucy is okay!  We were able to head off any sort of poisoning problems with our quick reaction to the discovery of the poisoning.  I guess the moral to the story is two-fold. One, be sure to keep any type of poison under lock and key.  And two, if something does happen, get to the Vet as quickly as possible.  Quick reaction time is critical in poisoning cases.

In my last post I wrote about pet insurance.  In this post I have to tell you that we had good cause to use it.  Our Vet bill was minimum due to the fact that we have good pet insurance for our dog.  And Lucy received outstanding care as a result of it!  As I write this post, Lucy is laying at my feet and seemingly in good health and humor.  I trust your pet and best friend is doing the same...