My dog has now increased his value by $850….

Ξ March 6th, 2008 | → 3 Comments | ∇ FOOD, Halo, friends, general life stuff |

Well, if you have a dog, and like ot chew sugarless gum, I suggest that you loose your taste for the gum, and go with gum that is filled with sugar!

Halo about two weeks ago, decided to put his nose into one of the purses of one of the youth that we were entertaining at our house. Now, this is not unusual in anyway, Halo is a Beagle and therefore his life and mind are ruled by one thing…his nose. And Halo is a smart enough dog that in the past he has been able to unzip purses to get inside and find all kinds of good “treats”. Well, this time he got into a purse with sugarless gum. And I had no idea that almost all sugarless gum has a chemical in it called, Xylitol. And this chemical, is deadly to dogs. For some reason this drug when ingested by dogs causes their blood sugar to slowly drop over the course of two days and then their liver shuts down killing them…. the sad thing is that over the course of the two days nothing is noticeable other than the dog might be a little more tired than usual, and then by the time their liver shuts down it is too late for medical care.

The drug is so dangerous, that one gram of the drug in the sugarless gum causes death, and usually each piece/stick has 2 grams of it! Well, when Tiffany found Halo with the entire package opened and they got to counting it was around 10 pieces that he had eaten.

And by the grace of God Tiffany remembered hearing somewhere that sugarless gum was bad for dogs, immediately yelled down stairs where I was playing Halo 3 with other youth telling of the fact, wel, I did not know that it was bad for dogs, so i just blew it off… well, my genius wife decides to check the internet and finds out all the info that I just gave above! And then she proceeds to take Halo to the emergency hospital in Wilder. (I was not too excited about this, because it is something like $75 just to walk in the door. But, they got halo in and immediatly induced vomiting and then put him on a glucose IV drip. and kept him on watch (suicide watch is what Tiffany and I called it) overnight… we then went to pick him, up expecting to take him home, and they tell us to take his straight to our vet for them to keep him, and they decide to keep him over night as well, and at one point that day they called Tiffany and told her they thought his liver was shutting down and they might need to call her back with bad news…. aaarrrggg.. i was in Lexington the whole day…anyway, long story shorter, Halo came home and even to this day continues to take a pill each day to make sure his liver is OK….but throughout it all it cost us $850. And I mean wow! Here is a dog that brings us so much joy everyday, but that is about to run into the money that we personally (not the help from parents or others) have saved up to pay for us to someday have a baby…and it was a very tough time for Tiffany, but decisions were made and we still have a wonderful loving Halo!

BUT, if you are a dog lover, PLEASE remove all sugarless gum from your house and let visitors know if they bring in purses, coats, etc…..

KUTPs!!!! and have a great day!

for more info on the drug Xylitol click below:

A report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association has just shown a link between the sugar substitute Xylitol, and illnesses in dogs. In fact, it is so bad, possibly causing acute liver failure that out of eight dogs found to have ingested Xylitol, 5 died or had to be euthanized.

Xylitol is a commonly used sweetener used in sugarfree gums, candies and even baked goods. So keep an eye on the ingredients when feeding your dog human treats.