The Pedigree Database: German Shepherd dog

My mothers 2 1/2 yr. old male shepherd loves to chew on bottles whether it be pop bottles, milk jugs, etc...  Anyways, while she was at work today her dog got ahold of a bottle of ADVIL and ate 39 pills out of a bottle of 50.  It happened sometime in a 7 hour time frame.  He was acting fine but we immediately took him into the vet to have them administer huge amounts of peroxide to induce vomiting and to hopefully vomit up the pills.  It took a lot of peroxide and a little time until he finally did vomit.  His vomit was the color of ADVIL and he did have a few small chunks of ADVIL present in it.  He is going to stay the night at the vet tonight and he is being administered an IV.  They did a blood test to check on his kidneys and all the levels were in the normal range.  They will be doing another blood test on him tomorrow morning.  We are praying that he will recover from this with no problems.  Please pray for the safe and quick recovery of our beloved friend.

Mysti

My thought are with you and your dog. Good luck and keep us posted.

Good luck.

Nearly one year ago I lost an 18 month old to the same thing after 3 months of fighting to keep him. He got progressively better but then crashed and crashed hard. It will be a long road ahead. May you have better luck than we did.

I will go to my grave still yelling all the way there:        ALWAYS KEEP A BOTTLE OF PEROXIDE AT HOME, IN YOUR TRUCK , OR CAR AND IN THE KENNEL AREA......PEROXIDE WILL NOT HURT A DOG NOR A HUMAN.....

PEROXIDE IS NOW USED ALL OVER THE WORLD FOR  MANY THINGS IT WAS NEVER EVER USE FOR BEFORE.......BUT ALL VETS USE PEROXIDE THE MINUTE YOU WALK IN THE DOOR WITH A DOG THAT HAS INGESTED A SUBSTANCE AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS...IF ITS BEEN IN THE LAST 5-7 HOURS....PREFERABLY WITHIN AN HOUR OF INGESTION.

What if it had been a small child?      Thank GOD.

I hope the dog isn't suffering.  

Glad that he's on an IV, they probably also gave him charcoal for what he didn't vomit.  There's something called Apomorphine that we use, if the peroxide doesn't work and have taken to using that at a first line.  It's a little pill that gets put in the third eyelid that induces vomiting.  And then gets rinsed out later.  Hopefully his size will help too with eating that many.  We recently lost a dog to chocolate toxicity. 

Two Moons, these bottles are usually child proof. Unfortunately, child proof caps are no barrier to a large dog, who is able to chew the bottle to pieces!

Sending good thoughts your way for a complete recovery from this....

I came home to my older girl eating 20 plus 100 mg Tablets of Deramaxx.  Did Iv's and had to check her blood everyday, but she was fine in the end.  Darn Novartis for making them flavor tabs!  So, we've just learned to be very very careful with stuff. 

Sorry again, seems I was hard on everyone last night.   No excuse's.    My son got into tylenol once and we thought he would have liver damage.    Ya just gotta watch the pills and cleaners and all the household dangers not just for the kids but the dogs too.   I hope everything works out for everyone involved.

My thoughts are with you. Keep us posted!

We had a dog once that got into a bottle of Advil. The poison control center we called told us NOT to use peroxide to induce vomiting and to get to a vet right away. Yellowrose stated that Peroxide will not hurt a dog, but from what we were told, this is not true, and not always what a vet will use to induce vomiting. They used the drops in the eye to induce vomiting when we rushed to the emergency clinic. They told us that we had a better chance since we had not used peroxide. This was long ago so maybe someone can expand on this, but some things a dog may get into can cause ulcers or internal bleeding or some other problems and then can be worsened by giving peroxide.

I agree peroxide is good to keep on hand, but recommend people check with a vet before administering it to find out if there are any interactions or problems with using it depending on what a dog eats. Activated charcoal is also good to keep on hand.

After a few days at the clinic, lots of IV fluids, charcoal and some pills I don't remember the name of, our dog came home healthy as if nothing had happened. 

I hope all goes smoothly with your dog and that he pulls through. Is there any news?

Thanks everyone for your kind words.  They did another blood test this morning to check his kidneys and all the levels were still normal.  They still have him at the vet and are still administering fluids.  They said that we should be able to pick him up tonight before they close but will have to bring him back in the morning so that they can run another blood test on his kidneys.  Hopefully he will recover from this with no problems.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Mysti

OMG. So sorry to hear about the problem!
Maybe it was gotten to soon enough to have kept him from actually ingesting the dosage. We will keep our fingers crossed and hope the best for him, your mom & you.
Do keep us posted, Mysti, and keep your head up. Best wishes & good luck.

Just heard from the vet.  They are going to be keeping our boy overnight as he can't seem to keep all of his food down and they believe that he may have gotten some ulcers, so he is now being treated for that also.  If he is able to keep his food down tonight and tomorrow then we will be able to pick him up tomorrow. 

Mysti

Bad situation. So sorry to hear it. Hope he gets better.

So sorry to hear... sending positive thoughts your way. Hope all turns out OK, keep us updated.

Here's an update on our boy.  He had another blood test done to check out his kidneys and they still looked good so we picked him up from the vets Saturday afternoon.  He has been perscribed two different perscriptions to help him with his ulcers.  It is hard to get him to eat as his mouth and stomach are so raw and upset from all of the peroxide and the ADVIL.  He wants to eat but he can only manage a little bit but has been drinking lots of water.  He also has diareah but has not been vomiting.  I will be getting in touch with my vet on Monday to see if there is anything that I can do or give him so that he will be able to eat.  He has gotten so SKINNY!  He never was a very big boy only weighing around 68-70lbs(we keep our dogs nice and lean) and he looks like he only weighs about 58lbs so we need to get some food into him.  Please keep him in your thoughts and I will keep you updated as to his progress.

Mysti

If he will drink, why not give him some chicken broth combined with some canned pumpkin (the stuff you make pie out of, but the kind without the spices added). The pumpkin is easy on the system and full of good stuff, and usually accepted decent by GSDs. You could also cook some plain rice and use that in the mix, too-it's also easy on the system. Try it warmed, or if he rather have it cool serve it cool-whatever suits his fancy. A typical side-effect of alot of pain meds I've noted is 'dry mouth', which might be part of the reason why he's drinking so much. I personally wouldn't try dry kibble until he was past this episode a few days to give his tummy time to heal. If he seems to have stomach issues, Pepto Bismol liquid can help soothe the tummy without hurting him. Good luck.

Advil in the likely dose this dog ingested will result in serious, if not fatal, complications. She is already seeing that in the ulceration of the stomach and who knows where else. I suggest she spend her time speaking with the vet.  Hopefully the vet is a specialist. I suggest she NOT solicit or accept  advice from this forum. This is a very serious poisoning and many dogs die from bleeding ulcerations, or are never able again to properly digest food and die, or die from kidney/liver failure that may show up later. The best advice will come from a practitioner who is actually monitoring the dog.

I wish the dog luck. It sure needs it in this case.

Mysti - many years ago we had problems with a dog with a very acid stomach and we had problems with feeding her.

We did find that if we made a an arrowroot and skimmed milk solution at night and then fed it in the morning about 1/2 hour before giving proper food that she coped a lot better.  -  You need about a teaspoon of arrowroot, mixed to a paste with a bit of water then add to 1/4 pint skim milk in a saucepan and bring up to a simmer for a few minutes.  Leave to cool in the dogs bow and give the next day.

Prayers to you, and to your friend. jh

Wow I am so sorry to hear about your dog.  As far as feeding, try to make a mush of boiled chicken and rice by putting it in a food processor, brown rice and chicken, even some hamburger and blend it all up, that should be easier to eat up than anything requiring chewing

 I was house sitting several years ago, and the owner swore her dog did not need to be in a kennel during the day, I came home one afternoon, and he had eaten a brand new bottle of "Green Eaze" the pills that you give to dogs to stop killing the grass if they pee on it, the pills lower the acid in the urine (methionine), well he ate 500 pills or so, the bottle was brand new and there weren't any left!  I found him convulsing, and non-responsive, we took him to the EVet they pumped him and stuffed him with charcoal, he was in the hospital for 6 days and  eventually had a full recovery, the vet bill was rediculous. 

This was my justification for ALWAYS having my dogs in a kennel or a crate when I am not home, and they don't get to be in a part of the house that I am not in.

Best of luck to you and your pup, hopefully you can get him to eat something if you slop it up!

I agree with Hodie-I don't know about others, but my suggestions for helping get a little something in his stomach sure isn't meant to take the place of professional consultation and instruction. By all means, follow what your vet says and stick with it. And when the time comes, I'm sure you'll know what to do and how to do it-that's what you're gonna be paying them for. But I kinda doubt he should be putting dry rough kibble into his tummy real soon. He can always put back on weight once he's over the worst of this mess-I wouldn't overly fret his looks considering survival is more important than looks right now.
Mysti, I hope your boy comes thru this mess and gets well again for you and your Mom.

Of course I have been seeking the advice of my vet. Our dog would no doubt be dead right now if I hadn't rushed him into the vet right away.  I am mainly just asking for support and prayers to help us get through this horrible ordeal. 

Mysti

Mysti,

I have no expertise, but I offer you my prayers.  God has worked miracles for me in small ways, I hope he will do so for you.

love,

beetree 

Hope your partner ends up well in the long run.  Just pray his kindneys don't show show signs of deterioration in the upcoming future! Best of Luck

Mysti - I hope things are improving.  Having had a seriously ill dog I know how emotional it can be.

Did they also check his liver function as well?  Sometimes those kinds of medication can affect organs other than the kidneys.

I took him into the vet yesterday so that they could do another blood test and this time check out everything.  They did the kidney test in house and they still look good but they had to send the blood to our local hospital for the remaining tests to be done so I should be hearing back on the results sometime today.   I am happy to report that since yesterday he has started to eat again and looks the best that he looked since I picked him up on Saturday.  I am giving him small frequent meals as I am sure that his stomach has shrunk and we want to make sure that it stays down.  Before he would just lay around and didn't want to get up for anything unless he had to go to the bathroom but now he has been trotting around and even chewing on some of his toys.  He still has diareah but I am keeping an eye on him and if it doesn't go away soon my vet said that he can give me an anit-diareah medicine.  I will keep you updated as to his progress.  Thanks.

Mysti