The last day of our vacation, as we were getting ready to pack up leave, our puppy,
Rascal, was busy sniffing, playing, and exploring. We were staying in
beach house at Bodega Bay--our first vacation in years, and the dog ran
under a dresser then came out munching. I was paranoid by now after the smoked salmon incident (another thread), so I got down and checked out what was under the
dresser. I saw what appeared to be---RAT PELLETS that were loosely tossed
along the baseboard. Another panic moment! I checked the internet and
read horror stories about dogs ingested rat poison and the owners
never knew about it, but watched in horror as their beloved pet slowly
died. I read it was a slow process. Of course it is Sunday and where
do you go when you are 4 to 5 hours away from home?
The next day I was at the vets picking up our other pets from the boarding facility, and told the vet what happened. I learned that the most common rat poison is strychnine. It attacks by stopping the blood from clotting. Eventually, the dog bleeds to death internally. Vitamin K stops the process. So, Rascal got a vitamin K shot and a prescription for vitamin K pills. Rascal did develop a cough that day which went away by the next day. I read that blood leaks into the lungs. Please watch out for this!
Later that day, I was talking to a man who lost his golden lab a couple weeks earlier due to his dog getting a dead rat from the field next door. The owner learned later that the rats were being poisoned. He did not know the symptoms and his vet did not know the details of what made the dog sick until it was too late. He could hardly tell me the story. Please beware.
I added a link to the article I read on vacation that helped me.
http://www.dogworks.org/poison.htm