React Appropriately to a Cat that has Been Poisoned

Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Dr. Greg McDonald, we are doing a talk about emergency first aid in your cat today for Expert Village.com. One of the things that is real common in cats is, people sometimes don’t really think very much about, is poisoning. Cats are out and about, and luckily they are very fastidious—they don’t like to eat things that are toxic to them, but you have to be aware of what to watch for if they do. One of the very common toxins that cats get into is a problem with antifreeze in your car. There is ethylene glycol in it, and it works to kill the kidney basically. It forms little complexes in their kidneys, and their kidneys die, and so if you don’t actually see your cat licking up the antifreeze, the first signs that you might notice is vomiting in your cat. And again, we talked about fur balls earlier. When a cat vomits once a week, it’s not a big deal. If they are vomiting two or three times a day, you need to get them right into your veterinarian. The other thing to be aware of if you have other the products out there: cats can walk through your lawn and possibly lick their feet after they have been in the lawn. If you had Round-Up or some other product that you put into your lawn, your cat could start having seizures, They can start having bleeding difficulty and other things like that. Gopher bait, snail bait, all those things are certainly possible in the cat, and if you start seeing a seizure in your cat, again you should take the cat to your veterinarian as soon as possible. Seizures in cats are not like seizures in people. People worry about swallowing their tongue. Cats and dogs don’t do that, so you don’t have to put your finger in their mouth or try and put something in there to keep them from swallowing their tongue. All you are going to do is get bitten. But if they are seizuring, you need to get them into a veterinarian right away. Oftentimes if they have epilepsy or some other problem, and by the time you get them to a vet and seizing has stopped, it is still important that you check that out because if it is toxin, then your veterinarian is going to want to pump the stomach and put some activated charcoal in and do some other appropriate therapy for them.

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