Poisoning scare tonight!

I went up to the upstairs playroom tonight and found Daisy chewing on a package of Orbit gum, which I was pretty sure contained Xylitol. I later found out that it did, though in very small quantities. It looked like she had eaten 6 1/2 pieces of a 14 piece pack. I got very scared and called my vet, got referred to an emergency vet who told me there probably was nothing to worry about.

Me, being a worrier, was still worrying, so I called the ASPCA Animal poison control hotline. (The call is $60, btw. I wasn't aware there was a charge until tonight.) I spoke to a nice vet there who calculated the amount of Xylitol Daisy probably ingested and said it was around 20 mg/pound, and they don't start seeing problems till around 100 mg per pound. So they told me to give her a little bit of food, and to watch her and call back if she is vomiting or very lethargic. I asked if I should try to induce vomiting and she said no.

My hands are still kind of shaking because I got so scared about this. We almost NEVER have gum around the house, but my kids had their birthday parties on Saturday night and I put a pack of Orbit sugar free gum in each of their guests' favor boxes. There were some extra packs and my son brought a pack up to the playroom and left it on the coffee table, where Daisy found it. I knew that xylitol was very toxic to dogs, so when I saw what she was chewing on, I panicked.

So watch the sugar-free gum in your houses, if you have any. The vet at the poison control center said that the rule in her house is that any sugar free gum must stay in the car and never enter the house. I'm throwing all of that stupid gum away. I hate gum anyway, but my kids like it and I was trying to be a good parent and give the kids sugar-free rather than regular gum. I didn't think about the possibility of Daisy getting into it until I saw her eating it. Very scary. I doubt I sleep much tonight as I will be watching Daisy every minute. They say the effects may show up as much as 24 hours after they eat it. Of course the vet made me feel better, but I will still be scared until I'm sure she was not affected by it. Some of the websites I looked at said that a very small amount can be toxic. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers tonight.

She's such a little glutton and in the past few days since I've cut down her food again, she is constantly on the lookout for something, anything to eat. She acts like she is starving all the time.

:xfngr: that everything will be OK. Thank goodness you caught her when you did. Thanks for the warning- many people probably aren't aware of the danger when dogs get into sugarless gum.

That is so scary!! Thankfully you caught her before she ate the whole package. It sounds like she should be okay, but I know you will be sleeping lightly tonight. Hopefully all will be okay.:xfngr: Please give a morning update.

Hi

I am so glad Daisy is OK ,I am sure it must be the name cos out of my three if theres trouble happening my Daisy is always at the front of the queue.

Best Regards

Brian

Gum

We had a similar experience about nine months ago - the dog ate a whole pack of gum that was in a rucksack (back pack). Rang the vet on call and he said leave it to see how the dog was before we brought it in. No problems at all - except to my sanity - it was all pooed out the next evening. I know it is so worrying and I got such a fright when I found the empty pack (or flittered pack) of gum. It must have been a long night for you!

:hug::hug:
You must have gotten an awful fright when you found her. :xfngr: that Daisy will be fine. Keep us posted

I am probably a bit dense here, but i had NO IDEA that Xylitol was toxic to dogs.

Its scared me a bit, cos i can imagine exactly how you felt.... one year Louis ate ALL of my husband's advent calendar, and i am aware that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. . . needless to say he ended up spending the rest of the day in the vets drinking charcoal !!!

So that was an advent calendar that cost £77. . . but i was terrified.

Steffers said:

I am probably a bit dense here, but i had NO IDEA that Xylitol was toxic to dogs.

Its scared me a bit, cos i can imagine exactly how you felt.... one year Louis ate ALL of my husband's advent calendar, and i am aware that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. . . needless to say he ended up spending the rest of the day in the vets drinking charcoal !!!

So that was an advent calendar that cost £77. . . but i was terrified.

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Different types of chocolate are worse than others. We had a cocker eat probably 3/4 of an unopened quart sized container of Whoppers (chocolate covered malted milk). That's a lot of Whoppers for even a person. She was fine.

JeanKC said:

Different types of chocolate are worse than others.

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I have heard that before - someone told me dark chocolate is the worst, and white chocolate is okay !

But you still panic, you can't help it !!!

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. Daisy seems fine to me. :rah: I put her crate right beside the bed last night. I did notice that she drank quite a bit of water a couple of times, and she wanted out at 4:30 am. (You can tell I didn't sleep much if I knew all of that.) And she never scratches to get out when she is in the other room. I let her outside and she immediately went and started eating grass, which she often does when her tummy is upset.

But other than that, she seems completely normal. In the little bit that I slept, I apparently was dreaming about dogs because I pushed my husband in my sleep and I said, "Move over -- you are on the dog's cage!" I dreamed that we had a 2nd dog in a cage on top of the bed and that he was crushing her! When I'm stressed, I often have these weird night-time dreams that I act out. My husband is pretty used to them, so he had to laugh and tell me all about it this morning.

I brought all the extra packs of that gum into the university with me this morning, and I'm going to award them to the students who do the best on our in-class activity today, just for fun. That way, they are gone, but not wasted. But my husband told me that I should make sure none of the winners have dogs, or they can't have one!

I'm going home right after my last class today to check on Daisy, but I do feel like she's fine now, so I'm not too stressed anymore. We just have to be so careful because she is on the constant lookout for food, as I said in my original post. It's unbelievable how hungry she is all the time. And she's about 5 pounds overweight, so it's not like she's underfed. I have been giving her less food and adding green beans, but clearly, she's not satisfied with the amount of food she's getting.

Glad to hear Daisy is okay!
Thanks for the reminder about sugarless gum. I had forgotten!