My dog ate a dead rat. What should I do if it happened a while ago?

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Silly Camper! My primary concern is actually the status of the rat. If it was dead or lethargic, or if there has been rat bait placed anywhere Camper could have gone, you need to see your vet first thing in the morning for Rat Poison antidote. Taken as a preventative, it should prevent any problems from occurring. Rat Poison is often FATAL in dogs if not treated and early treatment is very successful. So if there is ANY possibility, please see your vet. Otherwise, continue to monitor Camper. As long as he remains playful and energetic, with normal stool and no vomiting, you do not have much cause for concern. If any of that changes, its time to see your vet. Best of luck to you and Camper!

Eating a rat likely will not cause problems unless the rat was poisoned with rat poison or had already been dead for a while. Your puppy may get a bit of diarrhea or start vomiting. If that happens, start feeding her some white boiled rice with boneless boiled white chicken meat for a day and then slowly introduce her normal food again. Watch his gums for color (they should be pink, not white or bluish) and little specks of blood (petechiae). If her gums turn white or you see petechiae within the next few days, you need to take Kilo to a vet right away, as the rat may have ingested (and died from) anticoagulant rat poison and Kilo would need to be treated with Vitamin K1 tablets.

In these cases close monitoring is needed both for any possible wound/injury from the fight and possible poisoning (some of these rats can be poisoned with rodenticide). Any external wound, lethargy, inappetence, signs of cough, vomiting or diarrhoea should be checked by your local vet.

It can take up to four days for signs of rat bait poisoning to appear, and by then the dog is extremely sick. If you think this rat had gotten into rat bait, the best thing to do for your dogs is to take them into a vet immediately for treatment.

There are a couple things you should be concerned about, if your dog is not vaccinated then leptospirosis is a concern as Rats carry it and it is a serious disease in dogs (affecting the kidneys and liver). the main second concern is rat poison, if the rate ingested rat poison in the past couple weeks, then your dog could be poisoned too, these poisons are usually blood thinner which cause an animal to bleed to death, often it has a delayed action and the treatment for that is vitamin K, which must be given by your vet by injection first.

Killing the rat shiuldnt be an issue, my only concern would be if she had eaten the rat and it had been baited with rat poison. If she didnt ingest any i wouldnt worry, but if she did eat it you could have the vet make her vomit just in case.

You probably do not need to be concerned since Puppy did not actually eat the rat. However, if you feel like she is acting abnormally, like vomiting or coughing excessively or acting more lethargic than normal, I would recommend taking her in to the vet just to make sure nothing is going on. There are some diseases that can be spread from rat to dog but with such limited interaction Puppy is probably fine. My only other concern would be if there was any rat poison around that the rat or Puppy could have gotten in to. If so, this could cause some bleeding issues in Puppy. Your vet can run a simple blood test to make sure this is not an issue.