My dog killed a rat with blue poison. Should I worry if he vomited?

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Poor Ziggy! Eating a mouse shouldn't be a big deal. Mice are intermediate hosts for some intestinal parasites and if the mouse died from eating rat/mouse poison it could be a problem. Since Ziggy is a big dog I doubt if the mouse died from eating rat poison he would be affected. As long as the vomiting and diarrhea are self limiting he should be ok. Hope this helps!

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.

Hello and thank you for your question regarding Chester. It is so difficult to keep our dogs away from dead animals, isn’t it? It’s like candy to them. I realize that there are so many things that can run through your head as to what can go wrong after ingesting a dead mouse that died of an unknown death. We begin to think of all of the worst case scenarios. Because Chester 65 pounds, the likelihood that it will cause any gastrointestinal ripping or damage is unlikely. The mouse could, however, cause gastrointestinal upset like diarrhea and vomiting if there was putrefaction in the rodent. your concern about whether a mouse that died of pesticides or rat bait poisoning could be an issue is a valid one. If the mouse did in deed die of poisoning then Chester can be affected by this within 24 to 72 hours. I do think it would be best to take him to a veterinarian as soon as you can to at least have some blood work performed to check if there has been any evidence of toxicity. The veterinarian may also want to take an abdominal x-ray just to make sure that nothing else is happening in the intestines. Nine times out of 10 these tests will show nothing abnormal and your dog will be fine. But it is always better to error on the side of caution. I hope this is helped.

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.

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.

Marley will likely be fine now. I suggest you take her to your veterinarian for a coagulation panel in about 7 days, just in case some of the anticoagulant in the poison (if this was the anticoagulant type) dis get absorbed. Watch for signs of illness (neurological such as seizures, or increased thirst...there are a few other types of rat poison which can cause this) and if these occur, please take your dog to the vet. Apart from that, if all the poison was regurgitated within a relatively short time after ingestion, your dog should be fine.

It is very unlikely that there would be enough residue to cause toxicity in a dog Ziggy's size as long as you are 100% certain that there was nothing left in the box. With all types of rodenticides you wouldn't necessarily see any signs of toxicity for 12-36 hours, but ingestion of the actual material would be necessary to cause toxicity. If you think there is any possibility that some could be left I would recommend taking a close look at the box and contacting the Pet Poison Helpline: www.petpoisonhelpline.com