# How to judge severity of situation/symptoms



## Serenissima (Feb 26, 2014)

Hey all,

My roommate let Simcoe in to our kitchen area while she was cooking and we'll just say that she isn't the best at keeping the food she's preparing on the counter... anyway, poor girl has had the runs for the last 12 hours however the most recent poop the tail end came out quite a bit more solid so I'm not too worried as she seems otherwise fine, resting and taking it easy. My question is, although there have been no severe signs in my opinion, like blood present (if there was I wouldn't be typing this out!) her poop has been the same kind of orange-red as some brands of hot sauce, only a bit muddier looking like wet red clay. As I hope and think we're out of the woods for this incident, what would all of you consider to be the "okay we're packing up for the vet NOW" threshold? I ask this for any and all symptoms, not just poops.

Thank you!


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## Gibbs Mom and Dad (Jun 3, 2013)

I really don't have any good advice for you other than to share these with your roomate:

:frusty: uke:   :ban: :fish:  :doh: :rant: :brick:


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## Serenissima (Feb 26, 2014)

Gibbs Mom and Dad said:


> I really don't have any good advice for you other than to share these with your roomate...


Ha, thank you John! It's not like she's purposely feeding her, she's just a very clumsy person with little to no domestic skill. That's for another post though ound: Simcoe was running around the house with half an onion skin the other day that had missed the garbage can. That made for some interesting "confetti."


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

The problem is, if it WERE going to be a serious problem, this would already be too late. For instance, if she had eaten a lot of onion, she could already have serious organ damage. I would probably at least call the vet, tell them what happened and ask whether she needs to be seen.

I think you PROBABLY dodged a bullet this time, but you either have to impress on your room mate the dangers some human foods pose for dogs, or you need to make it an absolute rule that the dog is in a crate or ex-pen before cooking starts.

Onions in particular are very toxic for dogs, so it really scares me to hear that she ws carrying pieces of onion skin around the house.


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## Serenissima (Feb 26, 2014)

krandall said:


> The problem is, if it WERE going to be a serious problem, this would already be too late. For instance, if she had eaten a lot of onion, she could already have serious organ damage. I would probably at least call the vet, tell them what happened and ask whether she needs to be seen.
> 
> I think you PROBABLY dodged a bullet this time, but you either have to impress on your room mate the dangers some human foods pose for dogs, or you need to make it an absolute rule that the dog is in a crate or ex-pen before cooking starts.
> 
> Onions in particular are very toxic for dogs, so it really scares me to hear that she ws carrying pieces of onion skin around the house.


Karen, believe me, my roommate hasn't heard the end of it. At least it was only a dropped skin, not any dropped raw onion. She's supposedly the dog savvy one of the two of us having had dogs all her life and Simcoe being my first one, but I think she's one of the ones who never put much thought in to it. As I'm home 90% of the time, it generally isn't an issue but your point about putting her into her xpen whilst cooking is good - already enforced in our home I'm afraid, the roommate isn't quite good at judging what is "clean" though. However, I do think I'll be tacking up a list of food items toxic to dogs on to our fridge after you raised that point, so I thank you for that. Do you think you can provide me with a list of your threshold of when you'd take Kodi to the vet? Obviously if he's ingested something or to reiterate, bloody stools, but anything else? Thank you!


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## morriscsps (Aug 17, 2010)

Serenissima said:


> her poop has been the same kind of orange-red as some brands of hot sauce, only a bit muddier looking like wet red clay.


That is disconcerting. I would have been on the phone with the vet when I saw the onion peel. They would probably have had you induce vomiting and bring her in to do a blood screen.

Having the runs for 12 hrs could also dehydrate her. How does her gums look? Are they white and pale or pinkish?


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## Serenissima (Feb 26, 2014)

The onion peel, I saw it happen and I know she didn't eat any, only wanted to play, so that was fine as it was the dried out brown part. Still gave me a scare though. This was a few days ago, so I know is not related to the strange poops. She hasn't pooped in over four hours and that was directly following her last meal, and her gums look good and she has been drinking so I think she's fine for now but will continue to monitor. She does seem a bit lethargic but one can imagine she didn't have much sleep last night so I'm letting her chill in her xpen.


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## DawnH (Jan 21, 2014)

Manny had diarrhea about a month ago. I think his culprit was a couple of butter laden green beans. By the time I took him to the vet the next morning he'd lost something like 7 or 8 ounces. They don't weigh that much anyway and frequent "runs" can easily dehydrate a small puppy or dog. Other than going often and loose, he didn't have any other symptoms. The fact that you said she was lethargic too would warrant a call to the vet for me. They started him on one of one of the medicated canned diets with a dose of probiotics every meal for the next week.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Serenissima said:


> Karen, believe me, my roommate hasn't heard the end of it. At least it was only a dropped skin, not any dropped raw onion. She's supposedly the dog savvy one of the two of us having had dogs all her life and Simcoe being my first one, but I think she's one of the ones who never put much thought in to it. As I'm home 90% of the time, it generally isn't an issue but your point about putting her into her xpen whilst cooking is good - already enforced in our home I'm afraid, the roommate isn't quite good at judging what is "clean" though. However, I do think I'll be tacking up a list of food items toxic to dogs on to our fridge after you raised that point, so I thank you for that. Do you think you can provide me with a list of your threshold of when you'd take Kodi to the vet? Obviously if he's ingested something or to reiterate, bloody stools, but anything else? Thank you!


Quite honestly, when Kodi has ingested something I was worried about&#8230; one time it was Rose of Sharon flowers, one time he got into an arrangement of dried hydrangea flowers&#8230; couldn't tell whether he'd eaten any or just made a mess of them, and one time I found a chewed blister pack from cold medicine on the floor (that he'd stolen from a guest's purse!:frusty. In each case, I called the vet and let them make the decision.

Rose of Sharon - Not a problem. The worst thing that would happen is that it might make him throw up if he'd eaten a lot of them. It didn't.

Hydrangea flowers - Turns out that's a BAD one. The vet said that if he made it to the office alive, he hadn't ingested any. (no more dried flowers within dog reach&#8230; he wasn't a puppy at the time, and ignored them for several months before he decided to "rearrange" them)

Blister pack? - That was trickier, because we weren't SURE he'd ingested anything. But a call to poison control made it clear that IF he had eaten the two pills, it was an over dose for a dog his size. So we were told to do the peroxide treatment. uke: We did, and never saw any sign of the pills, so I suspect he had just gone after a nice, crinkly, empty blister pack. But we just couldn't take the chance.

The problem with dogs ingesting toxic substances is that if you wait until they are showing symptoms, sometimes it's too late for the vets to even help your dog. It doesn't necessarily mean you need to TAKE them to the vet, but, IMO, any time a dog eats something that you know or suspect might be toxic, it's worth a call to the vet. At worst, it's a phone call and you can stop worrying. At best, with swift treatment of the right kind, the vet can save their lives.


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## Serenissima (Feb 26, 2014)

The vet wanted a fecal sample from her anyway, so off we went to drop it off and although it's nothing serious, she has a high instance of bad bacteria in her gut so she's on a low fat diet for the next few days, they'll do another fecal and judge to see if they want her on probiotics. Nothing really to worry about.


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## morriscsps (Aug 17, 2010)

We had to do the peroxide treatment to both dogs when we came home and found a bag of coffee on the floor. Nessie, the poor thing, was innocent. Jack tossed up a few grains of coffee. I think he did get a little. He acted caffeinated but we were only gone an hour and acted quickly when we got home. The ER vet told us one tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide per 15 lbs.


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