Thanks for coming back

Update to Dubya’s sugar free gum snack. I took Dubya to the vet Saturday morning for blood work to check his liver.  Vet says he’s fine and should have no long term effects. Good thing we were here when he ate the gum.

I believe half of what I see and almost none of what I hear. With all of the “verified” inaccurate  information zooming through cyberspace it’s almost like white noise to me most of the time. Well, I found out that the xylitol used in sugar free gum actuallly is dangerous to dogs.

Snacktime with Dubya

Our 3 month old retriever, Dubya, had a little snack today. My wife found him with his snout burried in a pack of the kids’ sugar free gum. It’s really a good thing she was here. I probably wouldn’t, in fact I know I wouldn’t, have acted as quickly as she did. I would have brushed it off and waited to see some kind of symptoms. She immediately went into crisis mode and called our vet. Turns out the stuff really is bad.

Pink Puke

Our vet  told us to make the dog puke right away. Luckily he also told us how to accomplish this. One tablespoon of peroxide. My wife held his mouth open and I poured it in. He gagged a bit then took off playing outside. He seemed lilke nothing was wrong. I thought that the peroxide must not be working. Suddenly his back arched up and he started heaving like crazy. After several seconds we had a pile of bubble gum flavored puke in the yard. Cool.

Dangers of Xylitol

The short term danger is low blood sugar. The dog can go into a diabetic coma in no time. Possibly fatal. Immediately after throwing up we gave him honey. Can you imagine a 3 month old lab juiced up on sugar? They are already ADHD. Anyway, the long term danger is liver damage. We have a date with the vet on Saturday for blood work.  The vet told us that since we actually saw him eat the gum and got it out immediately, he would probably be ok. If he had snacked on the gum when we were gone for the day, who knows.