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Is it wrong to contact poison control for animal related problems?... Shouldn't be.?

My sisters chiwawa climbed under her bed and eat about five pieces of excel gum (the wax paper kind), so as you can imagine i was worried about what might happen to the dog. so i got out the yellow pages, and decided id try poison control in montreal canada. Well, i explained to the guy what happened, and he actually got mad at me for calling poison control and told me its only for human related problems. when i asked him if he could refer me to a vet emergency number, he told me it wasn't his job to do that, then he hung up.......

i have to say i'm very ticked off by this, cause he couldn't care less about the dog. what do you guys think i should do about this, the guy wouldn't even refer me to get help. I'm sure your thinking "maybe you should have looked up a vet number first?" and i suppose i could have, but its not what happen.

so any advice? its ridiculous that a help center denies you any sort of aid, even a vets number.

Public Comments

1. Anything that would poison a small child would poison a dog.

Call again--or check the phone book for veterinary emergency numbers.

2. i'm sorry about your experience. I don't know about canada, but the in the US, there is an ASPCA animal poison hot line (just look it up). Also see if there are any links on any canadian vet school pages for hotlines.

How long ago did the gum incident happen? Did the gum contain xylitol? If so this is toxic to dogs and you should call a vet.

3. We call the regular poison control all the time. The number we use is 800-282-3171. It is free and they are always very helpful.

4. I've called animal control in the US and they were very helpful.

Granted, I was calling from a vet office, and asking about a specific chemical, so maybe that had something to do with it.

The guy could have been nicer, I guess.

5. My dog at 14 pieces of Orbit gum and my VET actually recommend poison control. I live in the US but my vet said that poison control is usually really on top of things and more than happy to answer questions. I would deal with your dog, and when you know that he will be fine, call back and complain.

Ok - the gum. If the gum contains the sugar xylitol it is VERY toxic to dogs. It can cause hypoglycemia in the first 48 hours and after 48 hours it can then attack and destroy the liver. You DO need to contact the e-vet. You can manage the hypoglycemia yourself if you are comfortable - by feeding small meals/snacks every 4-5 hours. But the liver should be tested after 48 hours. I don't know what excel gum is but please check the wrapper. The stupid gum places aren't open right now, but keep an eye on the dog and call the company tomorrow and ask about the amount of xylitol in one piece - multiply that amount by 5 (convert to grams - 1000 mg = 1 gram). What's the dog's weight in pounds? Convert to kg 454 grams = 1pound and 1000 grams = 1 kg). Take the amount of xylitol, divide by the mass of the dog. If hte number is greater than 0.1 you may have a problem. Xylitol is toxic at 0.1 grams/kg of dog's weight. Call the vet tomorrow!