Even before the fish and the dog came along, we had the plants. My very blighted wrightia religiosa, my blighted by association dracaena frangrans on one end of the balcony and on the other end, my water sucking hydrangea.
The hydrangea is not a very common or popular houseplant in my country, I don’t think. Except over Chinese New Year, when households will buy for decorative purposes and then throw away. So it is probably not common knowledge over here at least that the hydrangea is poisonous to dogs.
Hydrangeas are one of those interesting plants with cyanogenic glycosides. Basically, this means that under times of stress, the plant can have available CYANIDE, which is extremely toxic…The plant does contain irritants that can cause Gastrointestinal irritation (GI), and most of the time mild self-limiting GI upset can be seen – mild vomiting and diarrhea. In larger ingestion, you can see more severe vomiting and diarrhea, and hyperthermia has been reported. Some cases can develop vomiting or diarrhea with blood. The treatment for hydrangea toxicity is supportive / symptomatic care. – via justanswer.com
I love the large bushels of flowers that the plant produces, so we never really considered getting rid of the plant for the dog’s safety. And Donna had scant curiosity for the plant anyway, she spent most of her time in the living room and I can count on one hand the number of times she ventured onto the balcony by herself.
And so we thought we could trust her to leave the plant alone.
Aigh… our complacency had its downfall.
I suppose it was inevitable Donna eventually decided to sample a leaf.
I was in the kitchen at the time but could hear her bell and tag clanking from the balcony. As usual, I went to check because we don’t really think the balcony is the safest place for the dog considering the posionous plant and the potential for free fall down more than 20 floors to smack on the landscape garden below.
I was too late to witness anything but the circumstantial evidence.
A quarter of a leaf torn off. Half of it spat on the floor. The other half not in her mouth, but one can smell the zesty scent of greenery hurriedly swallowed in that recalcitrant maw of hers.
I was vexed. I didn’t know what to do, or what was going to happen. Perhaps she could detect I was vexed, she gave me gentle licks on my leg as I stood watching the bit of leaf lying limply on the floor.
She was lively still, hardly dying.
Should I make her drink lots of water? Not that I know how to do that. She drank at her own time, her own discretion.
Should I still feed her her dinner that was already on the kitchen counter.
The vet’s reception was always busy. They didn’t pick up my phone call. I sent an email. I googled.
I found an answer here.
Since she seems fine now, she’s probably going to be ok, although is she’s showing any signs of respiratory distress, take her immediately to your veterinarian.
For now, I would not feed her for 12 hours to allow her GI tract to settle. You can offer her small amounts of water beginning 2 hours after her last vomiting episode – if she can hold down the water, you can slowly allow her to have more at 1 time, until you can leave the bowl down for her.
When you do feed her, I would recommend a bland diet for 1-2 days of boiled chicken and rice – fat free, and a little broth, just to be on the safe side. She could have a very irritated or even ulcerated stomach lining. No treats or human food for 3-5 days.
You can also administer 1/2 of a 10 mg pepcid (if you have one) when you begin offering water. This may help with stomach upset, and can be repeated every 12-24 hours.
If she continues to vomit, or develops other symptoms, please see your vet.
Since it didn’t seem advisable to feed her and the rain had stopped, I took her out for a slow leisurely walk, which is something that we usually do at that time of day anyway. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, Donna started to vomit. A small round pile of yellowish muck about the size of a mug. And she would continue to hurl five times more. When she ran out of yellowish muck, she puked white foam.
Apart from the times she sat down and threw up, she was still very active and spent no time wasted inspecting the grass.
But by the sixth time, we decided enough is enough and took her to the vet.
Like the last time we were there as a walk in, we were the last to see the vet. The vet tech recommended no water for Donna while we waited. A patch of hair on her neck was shaved off, a blood test was done.
The results, the levels for her liver was slightly high, about 10points higher than normal. Otherwise, she wasn’t in any pain or discomfort, being still lively and frankly recalcitrant and perhaps unaware of her misadventure.
But oh is she serving her penance now, in the form of regular doses of disgusting gut protecting pills and supplements containing milkthistle among other things. She hates the minty taste and snorts her disgust every time I shoot the liquid down her throat with a syringe. What to do? Doctor’s orders.
Another blood test two days later found her liver levels normal again.
And we are now vigilantly closing balcony doors whenever we are not in the living room with her!
Pictured left: Donna at the vet looking at the cleaner vacuuming the floor on the other end after closing time. We were still waiting to pay vet bills and to get her medication. It wasn’t too bad since we could laugh at “The Noose” which was playing on TV.
