A Marysville man was in for a scary few hours over the weekend when his normally excitable 10-month-old puppy became wobbly, shaky and lethargic.
Andrew Holland says he took his golden retriever, Charlie, for a walk in the village on Saturday afternoon. Afterward, she went from being perfectly fine around 4 p.m. to not being able to walk an hour later.
“Immediately took her outside on her leash to see if she’s going to be sick,” Holland recalled Tuesday.
“But then … she couldn’t hardly walk, like, almost like a deer stuck on a patch of ice.”
The sickness came out of nowhere, Holland said. He called his vet’s office, which was closed because of the weekend, and then tried the newer after-hours vet in Fredericton, which was at full capacity.
Holland decided to rush Charlie to the Port City Emergency Veterinary Hospital in Saint John, where the vet took a urine sample that came back positive for cannabis.
Since he and his wife don’t use cannabis, Holland said he figures Charlie ate something on the side of the road that contained the drug — something that also happened to a neighbour’s dog at Killarney Lake.
“Charlie on the scorecard — she’s been stoned one more time than my wife and I and her son,” Holland joked.
Dr. Ivan Zakharenkov, a veterinarian and CEO of Galaxy Vets, which opened Fredericton Veterinary Walk-In and Urgent Care, said a dog ingesting cannabis is a common occurrence these days.
Even Monday night, he said, the urgent-care clinic had a case of a small dog being brought in and testing positive for marijuana toxicity.
In any given week, he said, he sees two or three cases.
Zakharenkov said that when a dog shows clinical signs of marijuana toxicity, it can be difficult to tell what type of cannabis the animal ingested.
With edibles, he said, the absorption is longer, so the effect of the product could last longer.
“I had a patient in Moncton last year that the effect lasted three days until we put the dog on fluids,” he said, adding that it’s important to tell the vet, if possible, about the type of cannabis or concentration the animal ingested.
Zakharenkov said symptoms can include staggering, which Holland described, incontinence, squinting, hyper-reactivity, and in severe cases, seizures or a coma.
Holland said the cannabis passed through Charlie’s system, but the vet told him he was lucky she was a bigger dog because depending on the dosage, the cannabis could have been much worse for a smaller animal.
Zakharenkov agreed, saying that if a typical marijuana cigarette has between 100 and 150 milligrams of THC, the toxic dose starts anywhere from two to three milligrams per kilogram.
Another issue, Zakharenkov said, is that owners are sometimes embarrassed to take their dogs in if they know they’ve ingested cannabis. But Zakharenkov said veterinarians are not judging and won’t report anyone.
They just want to treat the patient appropriately.
“A lot of people are more upfront these days about it because it is legalized … but then you run into situations when there’s, let’s say, a teenage child that is visiting the vet clinic with the parent, and they don’t want to admit maybe it’s their product,” he said.
“It’s more important to be frank and direct with the veterinarians. We’re not here to judge. We’re here to help pets.”
Holland hopes his story can serve as a reminder to cannabis smokers to keep it on their own property or clean up after themselves, as well as a cautionary tale for pet owners.
“She’s a 10-month golden that we just adopted, so they’re like vacuum cleaners,” Holland said.
“We’ve had two other golden retrievers in our house, so this is a third, and they pick up everything from tree branches and bark to socks in the house, you name it.
“It means that we’re going to change the way we walk to be less along curbsides and try to walk more in the middle of the road, or where there are sidewalks … because otherwise … in the grass and in the snow, there’s stuff that you just can’t see.”
