Dodge’s deadly rat/mouse bait snack - Why no signs of illness on the day of eating rat bait DOES NOT mean that everything will be OK, and your regular vet should always be contacted for advice. Meet Dodge, a very handsome, loving and inquisitive Pomeranian who somehow found and nibbled on some tasty rat bait and forgot to tell his mum and dad because he felt completely fine for the next couple of days. He nearly died and ended up requiring intensive care, blood and plasma transfusions and life support. Dodge has agreed to share his story (details at the end of this post) in the hope that it may save the life of other dogs, cats and birds. SO WHY ARE RAT and MOUSE BAITS SO DANGEROUS FOR YOUR PETS? Which they definitely are, even if you are advised at the time of purchase that that they are fairly safe! Most rat and mice baits (rodenticides) used in Australia and around the world are Vitamin K antagonists. The poison prevents the liver recycling inactivated Vitamin K from old clotting factors into the active form Vitamin K1 to form new clotting factors in the blood. Having adequate levels of clotting factors is essential to prevent internal bleeding. Animals don’t start to bleed until their level of new clotting factors is below a critical level which normally takes a few days or longer after eating the bait. Though dogs commonly eat the baits, cats are poisoned when they repeatedly catch and eat slow rats or mice which are dying from the poison. The most common signs of rat bait poisoning are breathing difficulties or sudden death. Less common signs include excessive bleeding during routine surgeries or when blood is collected for tests, lameness, swollen joints, blood in faeces or urine, bleeding from the gums, sudden swellings at sites of minor injury. Rat bait can mimic the signs of many illnesses, making knowledge of rat bait in the environment an essential clue to help get a diagnosis. Early treatment with the antidote Vitamin K1 is ALWAYS much cheaper than waiting for clinical signs to develop when intensive care may be required. Even better, when pets have been seen to eat the poison, is having your vet give an emetic to make the pet vomit up the poison before it can be absorbed. Testing for early signs of bleeding disorders with a prothrombin time test (PT) at approximately 48 hours after initially eating the poison will normally identify a bleeding disorder is developing before it becomes severe. Other blood tests can also be used to indicate a bleeding disorder is present but PT is the earliest test to identify the effects of rat bait. If a course of Vitamin K1 is dispensed and given in tablet or liquid form at this time then intensive care is very unlikely to be required. Vitamin K1 is very safe and can also be given on suspicion of toxicity without testing to confirm a bleeding disorder is developing but for big dogs a long course of Vitamin K1 can be moderately expensive and blood tests are recommended to confirm a bleeding risk is present. If you need to use rat/mouse baits, the baits should be placed well out of reach of all pets including dogs, birds and cats, preferably locked into tough plastic bait stations so that rats and mice can’t drag the bait out into areas where pets can reach it. DODGE’S ILLNESS started with a harsh dry cough which sounded very much like kennel cough but continued to worsen. His regular veterinarian was concerned that something more serious may be going on and ran some blood tests. Noticing bruising at the site of blood collection she immediately started him on Vitamin K1 (the antidote for rat and mouse bait) while waiting for test results. When his cough worsened and his blood tests results indicated a bleeding disorder consistent with rat bait toxicity his very concerned vet drove Dodge down to WAVES. Without the fantastic decisions made by his regular vet, Dodge wouldnt have had a chance to tell his story today. At admission to WAVES Dodge was finding it difficult to breath in and coughing every time he breathed out. He had bled into the internal lining of his windpipe (submucosal tracheal haemorrhage) a very rare and difficult to manage complication of rat bait poisoning which can completely close the airway. Also the air sacs in his lungs (alveoli)which are normally dry were filling with blood (alveolar haemorrhage) and he had blood between his lungs and ribs (pleural haemorrhage). Despite his earlier appropriate treatment with Vitamin K1 that day, his PT time had gone from double to more than six times normal indicating that he had completely run out of clotting factors in his blood. As it can take up to 48 hours for Vitamin K1 to fully correct the bleeding disorder of rat and mouse bait poison, a transfusion of fresh frozen plasma was given to replace his clotting factors and immediately stop the active bleeding. Later he would also require a transfusion of packed red blood cells to correct his anemia. Special thanks go to Spade and Ziggy, two of our heroic blood donor dogs who had previously donated the blood which was essential to save Dodges’ life. Despite oxygen, more Vitamin K1 and plasma, soon after presentation to WAVES, Dodge’s oxygenation started to drop to levels not compatible with life. He was sedated and intubated with a very small cat sized endotracheal (ET) tube as nothing bigger would fit down his trachea. When radiographs showed that his trachea was nearly completely closed below the level of the ET tube, a sterile feeding tube was modified to make an extra long ET tube to keep his trachea open while we waited for the blood to be absorbed by his body. After 14 hours of being intubated Dodge was becoming exhausted and despite breathing 100% oxygen, the levels of oxygen in his blood were again dropping dangerously low. Dodge needed to go onto a ventilator (life support) to take over the work of expanding his blood filled alveoli. By using a ventilator setting called PEEP (positive end expiratory pressure), his alveoli were able to be kept open, maintaining normal oxygen levels in his blood. Within 24 hours he was able to breathe on his own with the help of nasal oxygen and he was well enough to be discharged home 3 days after he admission to WAVES. He is now completely back to normal after 2 weeks at home. At referral/emergency hospitals such as WAVES we commonly have to give oxygen and blood transfusions to dogs and occasionally cats with rat bait toxicity, however it is actually very rare that we need to intubate or ventilate to treat this poisoning. We hope with increased public awareness of the effects of this poison and the advantages of early diagnosis at your regular vets, that we can minimise the need for other animals to go on life support or risk dying from this deadly poison. Sadly unlike Dodge some patients we see dying from this poison were known to have eaten ratbait but assumed to be fine because they remainded well on the first day.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 05:12:54 +0000
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