Peroxide: Man's Best Friend's Best Friend

When I came home from work yesterday, Maddie and Yombi greeted me at the front door. I was surprised since I had shut them in the bedroom when I left...Well, not that surprised since Maddie has asserted her knowledge of door mechanics a few times before. Not only had she let herself and Yombi out of the bedroom, but she managed to open the back door that leads to the mudd room where I put the garbage until I can take it to a dumpster (garbage pickup out here is $30/Month and I can't even fill one herbie in a month.)

In the garbage was discarded blackberry cobbler and a rich dark chocolate torte that I ate maybe 1/3 of before deciding it was too old to snack on any longer. Both of these items were not to be found among the mess of trash strewn about the small doorway. Upon second glance, Maddie did look strangely bloated (as in "full"; not as in "gastric torsion").

I looked up recipes online for tortes and most of the flourless wonders contained anywhere from 9 to 16 oz (1 pound!!) of baker's chocolate. This was not a good situation for Maddie, although she seemed quite pleased with herself.

So I went to my little animal pharmacloset in the bathroom and pulled out a 10 cc syringe and Peroxide. I went outside, bottle in hand and called Maddie in my sweetest "You wanna treat?" voice. The dosage for dogs is about 5cc per 10lbs, but I've found that even half of that does the trick. So, I put 15cc down the hatch and waited. 7.4 minutes later: out came Chocolate torte, Blackberry Cobbler and half of the bag of treats from the top of the kennel that I should have used to restrain Maddie while I was gone. I've never been so happy to see vomit before. From what I could see, the entire chocolate torte was undigested on the ground before me.

I gave Maddie another 10cc's just to be sure we got everything out, then instead of dinner, she got a tablespoon of yogurt with a tablespoon of baking soda and some digestive enzymes to ward of gas and bloat (as in "gastric torsion"). She was a little queasy for the rest of the night. I suspect that was the result of the chocolate. Usually with peroxide they throwup and have a look of "What the $%!@ just happened?" for about 10 minutes, then go back to being their normal selves. So I think she must have digested just enough of the chocolate for it to make her queasy and thirsty, but she didn't have an elevated heartrate, wasn't restless and didn't have muscle spasms...and believe me, I was looking out for anything unusual.

Maddie slept through the night and is feeling much better and was very hungry this morning. I should add that my vet is only a phone call away and would meet me in the middle of the night in an emergency (and has before).

Every dog owner (I believe it works for cats, too, but don't quote me on this) should have 3% Peroxide for times like these. I can think of at least a few times a year that I use it, especially when they eat too much of something. With a boxer, bloat is always a concern, so I would rather empty their stomach of the food than wait to see if it causes problems later. They will throw up their entire stomach contents with this route. There are a few other tricks for getting dogs to vomit, but none of them are guaranteed to empty the stomach like Peroxide. This will only work within the first few hours after ingestion. After that, the food moves to the small intestine where toxins will be absorbed. I think the fact that Maddie ate all those treats off the kennel first kept the chocolate from going right through.

In other news, I finished laying laminate in the back room and am getting ready to start on the center hall. More on that later. I have pictures, but probably won't get around to posting them until I get my desk back in here...since I use the printer to plug my CF card into. So it's back to work for me.