I recently heard a sad story about a woman whose service dog got a bottle of prescription medication off the kitchen counter, managed to open it, and ate about 90 pills. I'm not sure what the medication was, but 90 pills were not good for the dog. The dog's owner rushed him to the vet and after several days of veterinary care, and several thousand dollars, I'm sure, the dog is recovering at home and will probably make a full recovery. He may have some lifelong kidney problems, they aren't sure yet.
This dog had never gotten anything off the counter before. He'd retrieved prescription medication bottles for his handler but never chewed on them or shown any interest in doing so. She doesn't have any idea why he decided to get this bottle off the counter and chew it open and eat the pills.
This story worried me. I keep medications in a few different places. Most of my medications, including prescriptions, over-the-counter meds, vitamins, and herbal stuff, are in my linen closet. I have a small supply of meds to be taken as needed in my purse, which is normally on my kitchen counter. There are some pain meds and anxiety meds in a small vinyl bag on top of an end table in my living room, which is what Isaac fetches for me when I need him to do that. Then there is about a one-week supply of meds and vitamins sorted into one of those weekly pill containers that have little boxes for each day of the week, which I'd been keeping on my coffee table. The meds on the coffee table are what I worried about when I heard the story of the service dog that ate the prescription meds off the kitchen counter.
I'd been keeping them on the coffee table because I take pills from that container three or four times a day. It needs to be within easy reach so I don't put off taking them or forget to take them. When I first got Isaac almost a year ago, I was careful to keep meds out of his reach. But he never bothers them. Isaac never counter surfs. He never chews anything that is not a toy meant to be chewed by him. He's never chewed a single shoe. If I drop a bottle of pills, he picks it up for me and gives it to me with no interest in playing with it or chewing it. Sometimes if he picks up something like a sock, he gives it a playful little shake, but not pill bottles. Never, not in a whole year.
That's what the owner of the service dog that ate the pills thought, though. She thought her pills were OK on the kitchen counter. Then her dog almost died.
I decided I cannot keep pills on the coffee table anymore. I have a plastic container, about the size and shape of a picnic basket, that holds craft supplies. I keep whatever craft I am currently working on in it and keep it beside the couch. I put the pills in that container. I imagine Isaac could knock the lid off the container and get to the pills if he tried hard enough, but I think they are safe enough in there. It's not like when they were just sitting on the coffee table where he could grab them, or knock them off wagging his big tail, and then decided to snack on them.
Those of you that have dogs, do you store medications out of their reach?
Maybe you can find a small-ish metal box with a handle. That way he can't chew it and can still retrieve it for you when you need them.
ReplyDeleteI have found tho that when my dogs have access to plenty of toys they love to chew they do not chew on other things. So maybe the dog that chewed the pills had run out of chewie toys that he liked.
I have never had a service dog but have had many dogs thru my life and not one of them has ever chewed on a prescription bottle. Some have gotten on the table and taken chocolate candy and one chewed a frozen steak wrapped in aluminum foil that I had taken out to thaw and was going to eat for dinner. She ate most of the aluminum foil but it all came out in the end...lol.
The meds that Isaac retrieves for me are in a thick vinyl pouch with a handle. It would take him quite a while to chew through it. The meds I was really concerned about were the ones I kept on the coffee table. Those are mostly vitamins, actually. Which of course could still be harmful to him if he ate a large amount. Some of them are big doses, which I need to take because I had gastric bypass surgery so I don't absorb vitamins properly. If a dog that weighs less than half my weight, and does absorb things normally, ate the amount of vitamin A I need to take in a week, it would probably cause serious liver damage or maybe even be fatal. I don't need Isaac to retrieve those for me, though, because they aren't things I take in a urgent kind of situation.
DeleteI think it does make a big difference if dogs have plenty of chew toys available to them. And Isaac has a ton of toys!
I think eating food off the table or counter is pretty understandable. Isaac has never done that, but then, I don't leave him unattended with food on the counter, either. I would not be that surprised if he ate a steak off the counter if I left it there and went out for a bit.
Even though he is a service dog, he acts like any other pet at home. A fairly well-behaved pet, but still a pet. He doesn't act like a service dog at home. For instance, the pastor of the church that recently did a fundraiser for Isaac visited me at home and Isaac climbed up in her lap when she sat down on my couch. When Isaac and I saw her at church, he did not attempt to climb in her lap and instead stood calmly beside me. She was surprised at the difference in his behavior. Well, he was working at the church. He is not working when he's at home. He does tasks for me when needed at home, like bringing me medication, but he's still "off duty" for the most part. And he acts like it.
I understand the vitamin issue. First time I ever saw anything you posted was on obesity help. I had mine four years ago, time flies fast...lol. So I am also on multiple supplements thru the day.
ReplyDeleteStill if they vitamins were in a metal cookie tin then he couldn't get into them. You could even decorate the outside of the tin, decopauge, glue on fabric, pictures or paint it even to make it fit your decor.
Someone suggested a metal lunch box. I don't know how easy it is to find metal lunch boxes anymore. I think they are usually plastic. Which would probably work, too. But a cookie tin is a good idea. I might be able to find one that matches my decor but if not, it would be easy to decorate it.
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