The past month has been rough for my dogs and I. 2014 ended with Yuki escaping from my grandmother’s house. While we were on the beach waiting for the New Year’s Eve fireworks, a neighbor called to let us know that the front door was wide open and a white dog was outside. I panicked. I ran back to the car and headed back to Yuki as fast as I could. My grandmother’s place is a cul-de-sac off a 6 lane road with a 45 mph speed limit that no one obeys. I was terrified she’d run and get hit by a car.
The good news is that Yuki didn’t try to run, she just waited in the driveway for me to get home. Bacio was hiding inside behind the couch, afraid of the fireworks. The adrenaline rush wore me out. Because of this incident leaving Yuki home alone at my grandma’s became a chore. We had to lock every door in the house including the bedroom doors.
After successfully leaving her alone, my grandmother and I decided to go to dinner and a movie. Unfortunately, after not being able to escape, Yuki turned to other destructive behaviors. She got on the counters, she found a tupperware full of homemade trail mix. It was full of raisins, M&M’s, and peanuts. At first, when we got home, I didn’t notice the empty tupperware, and it seemed like she had been a good dog. Once I noticed the tupperware, and realized what was in it, I freaked out. Perhaps you didn’t know this, but raisins can be extremely toxic to dogs. They shut their kidneys down. No one knows how or why, and some dogs are more sensitive than others. There is no way to tell.
I dug through all the cabinets at my grandmother’s looking for hydrogen peroxide. I don’t even know how much I dumped in her mouth (I was in a panic, I usually keep a syringe with accurate measurements on it, but I wasn’t at my own home). I took her outside and sprinted up and down the street with her until she emptied her stomach.
I got on the phone with an emergency vet, and they recommended getting her into the ER as soon as possible. I got the dogs in the car and it wasn’t until we were already at the vet that the possibility that Bacio ate some crossed my mind. Bacio usually doesn’t get into trouble, but this trip he had already gotten into the garbage twice. Now I was getting upset that he was had gotten into them. I knew for sure though that Yuki did. We drew both of the dog’s blood, and Yuki was to stay on IVs for 2 days.
The estimate for the blood work and 1.5 days at the hospital on the IV for Yuki.
I took Bacio home with me, I couldn’t afford to keep them both on IV’s and I really felt confident that he didn’t get into the raisins. Well, I did until about 5 am when he woke me up whining to go out. When he got outside he had diarrhea and I got back on the phone with the vet. I felt like garbage for not taking the precautionary measures with Bacio that I did with Yuki.
I brought Bacio back to the clinic and they asked me to bring in Yuki’s food and feed her while I was there. Apparently, she had been given 3 rounds of sedative and still would not calm down (she’s got major separation anxiety). When I got there I feed her and she fell asleep in my lap after about 30 seconds. It was hard seeing her like this.
Poor thing.
Unfortunately, Bacio’s liver and kidney levels were elevated from his initial blood work. He was put on IVs immediately. Yuki’s blood work was clean from the first test, and the 3 tests after that. Bacio’s liver levels went back to normal after being on the IV, but his creatinine levels stayed at 2.0 the whole time. This is a sign of kidney disease, the only plus was that his levels weren’t raising.
The dogs have both recovered from the raisin incident now, but Bacio still had elevated kidney levels on his last blood test, indicated an underlying problem. I brought him into my regular vet last week. They did a full blood panel on him and checked everything they possibly could. After the raisin incident I switched the dogs back to a grain free kibble, I was making their food at home before. The switch back to kibble has brought down Bacio’s creatinine levels to 1.7. He’s only been on this diet again for a couple weeks. I will go back next month to test his blood again and hopefully the diet change will get him back to normal.
The dogs have gotten quite comfortable after spending so much time here.
I feel so bad for the little guy, he’s been through so much already. My fingers are crossed that this is only diet related and that his kidneys will go back to normal.
Moral of the story, keep raisins out of reach of dog.
