By RACHEL MACDONALD
Note to pet owners: dogs and some common garden mushrooms don’t mix. Floss, a one year old Bijon/Shih Tzu cross, is a much-loved family pet.
Last week, she was clinging on to life with all four paws and she’s not out of the woods yet.
Late on Saturday night, her mum, Rose McFie, called a friend to rush her and Floss to the Rangiora Vet Centre.
Rose should have been at work as her husband was but it was clear their dog wasn’t well.
For a usually energetic little dog, she was very lethargic, wouldn’t eat or drink, and was vomiting.
‘‘It brought back too many memories, so I needed to get her seen straight away,’’ Rose says.
About a year ago, the family had another little dog, Zoe, who exhibited similar symptoms.
They delayed taking her to the vet in the hope things might come right. When her health continued to deteriorate, they were on the way into Rangiora when Zoe started convulsing and then bleeding out. She couldn’t be saved.
‘‘I saw the same early symptoms in Floss and acted immediately,’’ says Rose.
‘‘She was dehydrated, so the vet put an IV line in to give her fluids.
‘‘More importantly, her bloods showed her inflammation markers were high, and her liver readings were literally off the scale. No matter how much they diluted the sample, they couldn’t get a result.’’
Floss was in acute liver failure. The question was why? When Zoe died, the theory was she might have eaten baited possum droppings.
‘‘We’re careful about not using poisons around the property, so that’s all we could think of,’’ says Rose.
Again, the vet was saying Floss must have ingested something, and that’s when my husband remembered taking her out and her fossicking around the base of our big oak tree.
He went out on Sunday to take a look, and found three types of mushrooms growing there, two of which are toxic to both people and animals.
‘‘Dogs eating poisonous mushrooms was new to the vet, but all the symptoms pointed to just that. We’ll be digging them out!’’
The two suspected culprits found by the family are Earthballs (Scleroderma sp) and another fungus that is also very common Death Cap (Amanita phalloides).
Symptoms of ingestion of either of these in humans, and probably in Zoe and Floss, are unconsciousness, nausea, severe abdominal pain, vomiting, perspiration, tingling sensations, spasms, cramps, paralysis and anaphylaxis.
Rose’s message is: ‘‘If you have dogs or small children, it’s worth keeping an eye on what is sometimes unseen in the garden’’.
