Death Cap Mushroom Poisoning - Page 1

DEATH CAP  MUSHROOM  (crossposted from another dog list)

***PERMISSION TO CROSSPOST TO YOUR RESPECTIVE DOG LISTS & BEYOND**** 

I'm not sure how I should start this off, but suffice to say that I hope
that everyone learns from it, and that it NEVER happens to them.

On Thursday this week, I came home as usual, put the 3 puppies I have here
(Trace/Hannah/Smartie) into their puppy pen so I could let the big dogs out to
do their thing. As usual, after the big dogs were done, they all came into the
house and I let the puppies out into the big yard to play and explore with me
as I go around picking up poopies and sticks and stones before the lawn got
cut. At 5:30pm as usual, I tell the puppies that it's supper time, and in I
go to make up their dinner and they all fo llow me to the gate. I quickly
answered (an OK typed) email to a prospective puppy client while the dinner is
warming up, look out to the side yard, rap on the window and tell them to leave
it (I thought it was white plastic) and come for dinner. This was a space in
time of under 10 minutes. I go out to the gate, and as usual, Trace is sitting
at the top of the stairs waiting for me and Smartie comes along staggering and
whimpering and can't get up the stairs. I'm thinking sh*t, 
 what is going on here, grab the 'phone, call my veterinarian, screaming at
the gals that it was me and I was coming in, that I have a puppy crashing and
putting Smartie into one kennel and Trace (who's fine by the way) into the
other. I'm running around looking and calling for Hannah and I can't
find her and not thinking that she was in trouble, I kept thinking she's
escaped (although there is no open holes or anywhere to escape from). My clinic
fones to tell me that the 'phones are being put onto pager, and I'm just
screaming that I can't find the bitch and ask (I think it should be I told
her ) to get Gywnne, my vet tech friend to wait by her cell and I'll
'phone when I hit the road. It took me what seem like hours, but only
minutes to find Hannah, under the porch in a very dark place behind the lattice
work and I just ripped the lattice work off, pulled her out and put her on the
bed inside my truck, and hit the road. What usually takes me 40-45 minutes to
drive, took me 
 16 minutes with my flashers on, high beams blinking at those stupid people
that insist on driving in the passing lane, and horn blaring.

I hit the back door of the clinic with a seizuring Hannah and Gwynne grabbed
Smartie and we (I was helper only) prepped them for IV's with a quick
assessement by my beloved veterinarian Al. This clinic is emergency trained and
there was 3 techs, 1 runner, Al, and myself scrambling to get these puppies
stablized. They were crashing and crashing fast. Protocol warrants Valium for
seizuring dogs, so after a quick weigh on them, Valium was given to Hannah
through the IV and whatever the prescribed amount was for her weight, a lesser
amount of 0.5mgs (?) was given, and as they are working on Smartie, I'm
with Hannah & Cathy (vet tech), and IMMEDIATELY she stops seizuring and her
heartrate is going down fast and stops. Out comes the emerg kit, she's tubed
and atrophine is administerd to bring her back and after a few minutes she comes
back and appears to stabilize again. It is a given that her stomach needs
pumping however at that moment in time it was impossible as they were tryin
 g to keep her alive. Sm artie at that moment, is still with us and then I
bring Trace in for assessment and he is fine (thank god for his food hound
attributes, cause food is his life and thanks to his sire is probably why he is
still alive)........and then

......Smartie crashes.....
 by Micky D on 13 May       2008 - 03:05
                            
 Con't

When it finally appeared that things were settling down (a matter of minutes,
not hours), Al wanted us (Gwynne & me) to go home, look for the cause and
of course, Gwynne was to monitor the other dogs vitals, just in case. We looked
around in the area where I had seen them playing for that brief moment and found
mushrooms....Gwynne called Al.......

The pieces we found explained the small piece (the size of an eraser on the top
of your pencil) that was pumped from Hannah's stomach. At that time, they
were being monitored and appeared stable and much the same as when we left
them. Within the hour (although my sense of timing by this time was gone), Al
'phoned and told me what was going on and that all his training, all his
experience, all his energy, could not save these puppies and that the best
thing would be to let them go. The decision was made t o let them go as they
were in a coma and being kept alive by machine and human hands. There was
nothing else that could be done......they were just 4 months old........and so
I let them go.

So, from my tragedy, I hope you learn about these mushrooms. Of course, we
can't have our dogs living in glass houses and not be allowed to be
just......dogs......I have almost 6 acres of property and 1-1/2 is fenced for
the dogs and the dogs DO NOT access the rest of the property. I clean up poop
daily and pick up anything that looks or could look to be offensive to the
dogs. What else can I do? I have never, in the 24 years of living on this
property with puppies and/or adults, lost dogs to this. Of course, when poop
scooping, like all of us, we get rid of mushrooms as we find them, as a
precaution, but to have this happen is a shock. 

These particular mushrooms are not prevalent in this area. There is one school
of thought that they appeared on Vancouver Island in '98....others say
there are not on the Island. There is at least 2 species from what I learned in
my research and it is not certain if these are the mushrooms I have found or
not. When Gwynne and I were searching for the cause we found more and they were
taken to the clinic for evaluation. I found 6 or 7 on the Friday, none on
Saturday, and one today (Sunday). They are no t dangerous in their button stage
as juveniles as they haven't developed the spores to reproduce, but they
will kill if ingested! Mushroom fanatics have died simply by touching them,
cross contaminating them to their edible mushrooms and cooking those. 

When in the juvenile stage, they are pretty much white and level with the
ground and they hide under vegetation which makes it difficult to find them. I
have had to rake the area north to south and south to north, then east to west
and west to east morning and late afternoon to try and find them. I have not
found many more. They were in one general area where lots of sunlight hits the
ground but with some low growing vegetation that keeps the ground moist. Every
one I have found, save one, since the inc ident has been in it's juvenile
stage so they won't be reproducing. Given time, they will be gone, but they
could crop up again from the adults that had spores that I did find or that the
puppies had eaten. When the Summer hits, they will go dormant and sometimes not
always, reappear in the Fall.

I have been in contact with a mushroom expert and I am awaiting his
instructions. The pictures I have sent to him appear to be of one species and
their odour is nauseating. The link I am providing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides is one of many. You may cross