This is not a hoax, so be careful and watch what your dog eats. If you have a dog… PLEASE read and SHARE THIS (see at end of post). If you don’t have a dog, please pass along to friends who do.
Verified at Snopes.com
Written by: Laurinda Morris, DVM in 2004
Danville Veterinary Clinic
Danville, Ohio
This week I had the first case in history of raisin toxicity ever seen at MedVet. My patient was a 56-pound, 5 yr old, male neutered lab mix that ate half a canister of raisins sometime between 7:30AM and 4:30PM on Tuesday. He started with vomiting, diarrhea and shaking about 1AM on Wednesday but the owner didn’t call my emergency service until 7AM.
I had heard somewhere about raisins AND grapes causing acute Renal failure but hadn’t seen any formal paper on the subject. We had her bring the dog in immediately. In the meantime, I called the ER service at MedVet, and the doctor there was like me - had heard something about it, but…. Anyway, we contacted the ASPCA National Animal Poison Control Center and they said to give I V fluids at 1 1/2 times maintainance and watch the kidney values for the next 48-72 hours.
The dog’s BUN (blood urea nitrogen level) was alread y at 32 (normal less than 27) and creatinine over 5 (1.9 is the high end of normal). Both are monitors of kidney function in the bloodstream. We placed an IV catheter and started the fluids. Rechecked the renal values at 5 PM and the BUN was over 40 and creatinine over 7 with no urine production after a liter of fluids. At that point I felt the dog was in acute renal failure and sent him on to MedVet for a urinary catheter to monitor urine output overnight as well as overnight care.
He started vomiting again overnight at MedVet and his renal values have continued to increase daily. He produced urine when given lasix as a diuretic. He was on 3 different anti-vomiting medications and they still couldn’t control his vomiting. Today his urine output decreased again, his BUN was over 120, his creatinine was at 10, his phosphorus was very elevated and his blood pressure, which had been staying around 150, skyrocketed to 220. He continued to vomit and the owners elected to euthanize.
This is a very sad case - great dog, great owners who had no idea raisins could be a toxin. Please alert everyone you know who has a dog of this very serious risk. Poison control said as few as 7 raisins or grapes could be toxic. Many people I know give their dogs grapes or raisins as treats including our ex-handler’s. Any exposure should give rise to immediate concern.
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Besides raisins and grapes, Snopes.com also warns not to feed chocolate to dogs OR CATS. Chocolate– especially dark or baker’s chocolate– and cocoa, onions and macadamia nuts can be toxic to dogs. Be very careful not to leave these things within a dog’s reach. And be aware that there are some garden mulch products made from cocoa beans which can attract and poison dogs if ingested.
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THANK YOU doglover jdtp4e for alerting us to this one!!
This shot from Tina Y speaks for itself! Cleverly composed!
Tina’s baby son Evan at 2 weeks old, on 2000 lb. Dolly who is 28. (It’s hard to see the person hiding behind the horse, holding the baby– you can just make out one hand behind the baby’s back.)
Tina says: Evan is a trooper, and as soon as he can walk, Jill will be his horse. She’s very intelligent and respectful, and very aware of what’s going on around her, so I think she’ll be ok with having a tiny person in charge. She’s also a great trail riding horse, as she prefers to just follow Dolly and rarely spooks, so hopefully Evan will be able to join us on trail rides next summer! [REALLY!???-- he's 4 months old now.] I’m excited to start teaching him how to handle the horses, I think that’ll make some more cute pictures! [Can't wait!]
Enjoy these pix of both Tina’s horses and her story about them…
I’ve attached some pictures of our girls. They are both Percherons, Jill and Dolly. We bought them in fall of 2005 for a song, and fell in love with drafts. I’ve ridden western and dressage my whole life, my husband was a novice until the girls came along. Now I hate to admit it, but he’s better than I am with them! I’m getting excited about driving and considering purchasing another horse to use for combined driving, however there is very little in the way of instruction in my area, so we’ll see!
Jill is about 1800 pounds and is 21 years old this year and Dolly about 2000 pounds and is 28. We use them for riding, driving, and pulling things around (logs, round bales, rocks, tires, stuck vehicles… basically anything we can hitch to!)
They are on pasture 24/7 (we can’t even get them to go in the shelter!) and are barefoot and we’re in the process of switching to a AANHCP certified farrier.
Jill (on the left) is in an open bridle. We have russet lines with 8′ stub lines rather than the standard 5′. The russet means that you aren’t getting black harness dye on your clothes and the long stub lines we learned from Steve Bowers in Colorado, our mentor and friend who passed away last summer. (www.bowersfarm.com)
With long stub lines you don’t have to worry about the buckle getting hung up in the hame ring, which could have devastating results, as you aren’t able to use the line if it’s stuck in the ring. We don’t drive Jill regularly in the open bridle, as she seems to prefer the blinders, especially with the wagon. She does very well with the sled, though. Dolly doesn’t ever go in the open bridle as she’s rather scatterbrained and we just don’t feel that she’d do very well. We do a lot of ground work (ala Clinton Anderson) and do a lot of work with a plain wooden sled, as dragging something is much more beneficial to them than a wheeled vehicle, as wheels take the work out of it!
The stub line is the cross rein, some also call it a check rein. Driving a team isn’t particularly challenging, but there are some more things to think about while training and driving. More than I thought there was when we first got our girls.
Dolly, one of Tina’s percherons, out on long lines.
We spent a week learning from Steve Bowers last spring in Colorado, and highly recommend all of his books and videos, especially his two books. He talks a lot about getting the proper alignment for a team and how to hitch them properly and safely. Some of it might not apply depending on what you’re driving and what kind of harness you’re using, but much of it would be very relevant.
I’ve rarely driven a single horse, and then only with a sled, and only used a light harness once, so you and I are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. I found your blog from a youtube video of a young horse in training.
[peaches comments:]
NICE NICE NICE!!! Don’t you just love Percherons? In the snow pix they so remind me of Abby, our former Perch./Morgan who was our first driving horse. She was a sweetheart, though not always kind to our other mare because they both were alpha mares and our Arab definitely lost those arguments.
I love Clinton Anderson– one of the prizes I won for my movie in Easy Boot’s video contest was from a Clinton Anderson DVD series but shows Pete Ramey doing trims! AND we have seen him in person twice at area Equine Affaires.
I know very little about combined driving but have friends who have done it and our friend Kim who has Abby now hopes to get into it this year (with a different horse I think). When I start learning more, you can be sure I’ll blog about it!
Last summer, son Ezra on his new wakeboard behind dad’s 1935 GarWood… about this time of year I find myself thinking a lot about summer and long hot days and being on the water!
AAAHHHHH, summer!
Ez is an excellent snow boarder– and he wakeboarded a little before this about 3 years ago. As yet I haven’t tried the wakeboard, was a bit chicken this day. My concern is I can’t ride switch very well (IE., with the other foot in front,) and I’m sure that your legs will get real tired going the same way the whole time. And to switch, you have to turn the wakeboard in the water… and his boots will be 5 sizes too large for my feet…
But this does look pretty close to snowboarding, I think I could try it!!! How about it Ez? It’s probably the only way I’ll ever get onto one “ski,” since I never learned to slalom.
This would be me practicing carves on my K2 Push, as videoed by Hubby at nearby picturesque Gunstock Ski Resort… yes I do know what goofy and fakey mean, and I ride pretty goofy as you can see.
But if it looks like I’m going slow, of course it’s only because Hubby is riding too and videoing at the same time (how does he DO that?). I try at all times to keep my board ON the snow, no air for me thank U! (So I have very little idea what ollies and things like that are, though I did get to see Joonatan riding rails.)
And before you say I’m not exactly shredding, fellow riders, this could be your own mother! Or even someone’s grandmom. HA HA!
There really is a site called Grays On Trays, Snowboarding for Grown-ups. I love the name! Nice logo T-shirts too, support forum for learners of all ages, resort listings… ride on over!
Thanks to reader Tina Y, I just found out about this guy caravanning across the U.S. with 3 barefoot horses and 2 Great Pyrenees dogs. Lee the Horselogger apparently has been doing this since 2006, Montana to Boston and now he’s heading back towards San Francisco! They are presently in Pennsylvania.
Lee the Horselogger in Pennsburg, PA Jan. 17 (Lee is in the wagon)
Lee and his friends, Suffolk Punch draft horses
Lee’s site makes interesting reading and there are tons of pix as well as video clips, plus links to numerous newspaper articles about him. You really should check this out!! There’s quite a story there! As Tina said, it is a remarkable testament to the durability of barefoot hooves, as well as a truly unique adventure!! (See Tina’s comment on blog post Riding horses on pavement.)
Boyertown, PA Jan. 19– looks like he’s really rigged for weather, must be fold up windshields (plexiglas?).
Riegelsville, PA Jan 21, looks like lunch break
Folks find Lee to take their pictures with him (follow on his website!
Lee with contented work horse!
Lee’s site states: Lee wants to be known only as “Lee the Horselogger” and requests that his last name not be used. “Life is all about being human,” he said. “Names are only labels. People shouldn’t be grouped according to their title, religion, vocation, size, color or race. People should just be human.” Lee has no agenda, is not endorsing or protesting anything. He is not raising money for a cause or selling anything. He is just living life to the fullest.
I pulled these photos from Lee’s website, I’m sure he won’t mind…
Interesting flashback movie of a decade unlike any other… Back to the sixties - (there are pause and play buttons if it moves too fast for you to read.)
Our new lovely Rotary Foreign Exchange student is Fiorella Botta Serrano, coming all the way to NH from Colombia. Fio has been challenged to adjust to the cold snowy North, but is game enough to try snowboarding! She enjoys dance classes, comes to exercise classes with me, loves arts and crafts, and can cook plantains in really special South American ways!
Of couse we have gotten her on a horse and also in a carriage a couple of times. Fiore is in Gilford for a school year and will stay with three different families while here.
Here is FIO showing off her modeling talents! Visit Fio’s Facebook!
Greg Sokoloski, the officer with the Houston Police Dept. who is
responsible for taking the mounted patrol horses barefoot, has no
problem with the 31 barefoot horses performing daily for 8 to 10 hrs.
on mostly concrete. Some of these horses had various hoof pathologies
while shod and had only gotten worse in shoes. Now that they are
barefoot, their hooves have all improved.
At times the officers choose to boot but most of the time they are
barefoot. The horses are much better barefoot in every way. They have almost
no vet calls now. They are more sure footed. Wet pavement is no
longer as slippery. The horses are clearly more content and
comfortable and their attitudes reflect it.
He welcomes all contacts about this successful barefoot program.
Gregory Sokoloski
E-mail: hpdmp3486@sbcglobal.net
Address:
300 N. Post Oak
Houston TX 77024
Phone: 713-812-5158
Mobile: 713-898-3721
Please pass along this success story to other vets, friends, and
other lists. People need to know how a naturally trimmed hoof works
so much better than a shod hoof does.
Greg had to endure much criticism and go against conventional
thinking as he perservered with his conviction that a natural hoof
meant a healthier hoof and horse. He braved the press, the public,
the lies, the farriers the vets who said it was cruel, inhumane,
greedy, would kill the horses.
NO ONE has come back with a followup story of how the mounted patrol
horses have not only succeeded, but they have THRIVED. This story needs to be published.
Lynn Swearingen
_________________________________________ peaches’ comment:
We ride and drive our barefoot guys frequently on pavement (summers) at a walk mostly, also some trotting, but not trotting for long stretches (not over 2-4 minutes at a time.) The pavement helps keep their feet trimmed. Coming back from a nice 2-hour walk on pavement, their hoof walls and bars will be nicely smoothed down. We boot them in front for rough rocky ground or for gravel roads, just so we CAN trot them.
Here in New Hampshire we go out on warmer days in the winter too, so long as streets are not solid ice or lacking shoulders due to snow buildup. If we didn’t walk on streets we’d never be able to get them out in wintertime, or in spring mud season either! We have not known the pavement to cause any problems, we just use common sense and don’t “work” them on it, no cantering of course. A mare we used to have (Abby) had dropped soles in front, therefore we never trotted her on pavement but we did walk her on streets.
Barefooters don’t slip on pavement (dry or wet) when they have reasonable hoof concavity, but horses DO slip when they are shod.
I bought an abused Paint three years ago. He was nippy, starved,
abused, and was apparently (as I learned) was trained in abusive ways.
I started from the beginning. I walked with my horse for months before
I rode him. I also just sat and was in the same “space” with him for
months.
He didn’t like to be touched or washed. So I took a bucket and a
sponge and washed him with a sponge for months and then introduced
the hose with a attachment that sprayed gently. Instead of a brush I
would just touch him gently, then introduced the brush when he got
used of my touch.
I taught him a Liberty Method for his attitude with food. I taught him
that the grain I fed was my food, but I was sharing it with him. The
horse that used to kick and grab for food now walks to the back of his
paddock until I put his food down, then comes to the food bucket when
I tell him it’s OK.
I also rehabilitated his hooves due to being lame because of shoes.
It took both my husband and I to get him out on a street to trot to
rehab his hooves. I was out in the middle of winter for three months
jogging him up and down the street every night. It’s been two years now
and his hooves have grown about twice the size as they were when I
first got him. He is still barefoot and I trail ride him every weekend
approx. 18 miles each time.
He had wither injury so the saddle I initially had was causinhg greater
pain. He told me by bucking. I gave him chiropractic and massage
treatments. I also had him saddle fitted and now have a saddle that
fits properly.
People have come up to me in the last few months and tell me he how
they see a different horse than three years ago. My point is
…developing trust is a process and takes time. Trust comes slowly
and in stages. Believe me, he tested me quite often for the first two
years and I almost gave up a few times! I’m glad I hung in there
because he is a changed happy healthy horse due to being patient.
He now neighs when I drive up and soaks up my hugs! How cool is that.
I earned his respect as well as he has earned mine. So it’s all a
process of developing trust together. Work at each issue one step at a
time, and it does take time!
[Moderator Natural Horse Trim--what an inspiring story! If I reincarnate as horse, I hope you'll buy me!]
