Mushroom Poisoning

Five years ago, in another fall, my dog, Gaby, almost died. Thank heavens for a great vet clinic and quick action on both my and their part.

Please check your yards and places you walk for mushrooms.

Gaby was almost four months old and would put everything in her mouth. She had been housebroken for a while and after we came back from an on leash walk to a local park she made a huge dump in the house. I put her out in the dog yard while I cleaned it up. I set my Spot Bot and went out to find her as usual chewing on something which turned out to be a piece of Styrofoam. But I noticed she was
salivating a lot. I wiped her face and feet.  She had been digging and brought her into the house. She immediately asked to go out. My husband took her out she had another loose stool and once again began salivating and drooling and her eyes began to tear. My husband called me outside to look at her. Recognizing the signs of poisoning, I immediately called the clinic it was 4:20PM. We got there by 4:30 by which time Gaby was down on her side and her gums were very gray. They induced vomiting, started an IV and gave her atropine. Gaby was leaking water and stool. She was in shock.

Gaby slowly started coming around, pinking up as we medical types say. Once she was no longer vomiting they gave her activated charcoal. By 6 pm she was up and wagging her tail with just a little twitching.

Gaby went home with my friend, a vet tech, for the night. She still had her IV in and other than being exhausted was no longer vomiting or having diarrhea.

Gaby has used up one of her nine lives. She was one of the lucky ones. Quick action saved her life. The information below may help you save your dog's life!

There is more than one kind of poisonous mushroom. Some are very deadly. The deadliest ones don't do their damage immediately, but will completely destroy either the liver or the kidneys over a period of days. I had Gaby's blood tested a few weeks after her poisoning and her liver and kidney's were fine.

The toxin that Gaby had eaten was  "muscarine".  Symptoms of muscarine poisoning are leaking of water from the eyes (like big tears), lots of drooling, and leaking of water from the anus. Poop will be mixed in but it is not diarrhea, it is quite copious amounts of water coming out and the poop just sort of comes with the water. If you see the tears, drooling and wet "pants you must get your dog
to the veterinarian as quickly as possible.

Muscarine is present in Amanita Muscaria, that pretty red/orange mushroom with white spots. However, mycologists have found that some LBM’s (literally - little brown mushrooms - so numerous in variety they are not classified beyond that) contain even more muscarine than Amanita Muscaria. This is what I found in my yard. Muscarine slows the breathing and the heart, etc. There is an antidote for
muscarine toxin, which is a medication called Atropine. It increases the heart
rate. It works REALLY well, even if a dog seems very flat.

If you think you don't have these mushrooms around, think again, they are extremely common and are everywhere. You probably just don't have a dog that bothers with them, as none of my other dogs ever did.

Fall has finally arrived. Please check your yards, remove the mushrooms. You may be saving your dog’s life.