Yellow Dog Does Emergency Room. Again.

Two nights ago I was enjoying a snack of raisins from a large bag while standing in the kitchen.  While taking some out of the bag, a clump of about a dozen of them fell to the floor.  As the Yellow Dog was standing next to me, I just pointed them out to her with my foot, and down the hatch they went.

Bad move.  Grapes and raisins are toxic to dogs.

After my snack, I sat down on the couch and just didn't feel right about the dog eating the raisins.  She only eats dog food (other than what she steals), so for her to eat anything that I didn't pour into her bowl was rare.  Just to make sure, I Googled "dogs and raisins."

Yep.  Bad, bad news.  Thank God for Google.

I immediately went for the hydrogen peroxide, loaded up a turkey baster's worth, and as Mrs. YDP held the dog I squirted a load of the chemical down the dog's throat.  The Yellow Dog is a bit of a sissy, and in highly stressful episodes she'll pass out.  That indeed happened immediately after she threw up, which caused my wife to freak out a little.  Unfortunately, in digging through the dog puke, we came up with nary a raisin.

Mrs. YDP then immediately got on the phone with the emergency vet (it was 8:00 PM), and they said to bring the dog in ASAP.  I loaded up the dog and drove the hour to the emergency room in Fargo.

I got there and the waiting room was filled with about a dozen people.  "Oh, great," I thought.  But then I immediately noticed a sign which said that animals would be seen in order of their emergency, which made me wonder where we'd fall.  I filled out my paperwork and took a seat.  Two minutes later a nurse comes up to me and says, "Are you the raisin dog?"  I answered in the affirmative.  "Come with me," she said and led us past all those other people and animals.

The doctors there got her to puke up the offending fruit and immediately started her on drugs to stave off the toxins.  They also started her on IV fluids to flush her system and would need to do so for 24 straight hours.  

I was informed I'd need to prepay for everything, and that I'd need to pick the dog up at 7:00 AM to be taken to our vet as the emergency room closed when regular vets were open.  The bill?  $850.

When the nurse told me, I was standing next to a guy that was obviously in construction.  He immediately looked at me to see what'd I'd do.  I forked over my American Express and he turned away.  We are very fortunate to have the means to spend that kind of money on such an episode.

And the money just started there.  We had two appointments with our regular vet, IV bags I got to take with me, then a lot of Surly beer which I bought to forget the whole ordeal.  Total cost was well over $1,000.  All because I was too lazy to bend over and pick up some raisins.

This is now the fourth time we've rushed the dog to the emergency room in her 12 years, and is, by far, the most expensive.  Again, at least we're fortunate enough that we haven't had to make any really hard decisions.  

In the meantime, when I got back from the emergency vet that night about midnight, the first thing I did was throw the bag of raisins into the garbage.

I also threw out the cereal I had which had raisins in it.

With my dog, one can't be too careful.