If you have a dog … PLEASE read this. If you don’t have a dog, please tell your friends who do. As you can see at the end of this, it was written by a real Veterinarian. Please tell everyone you know even if they don’t have a dog.

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 7:30 AM and 4:30 PM on Tuesday. He started with vomiting, diarrhea and shaking about 1 AM on Wednesday but the owner didn’t call my emergency service until 7 AM.

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 IV fluids at 1 & 1/2 times maintenance and watch the kidney values for the next 48-72 hours. The dog’s BUN (blood urea nitrogen level) was already 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 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. Onions, chocolate, cocoa and macadamia nuts can be fatal, too.

Written by:
Laurinda Morris, DVM
Danville Veterinary Clinic
Danville, OH

Living as close to water as we do here in New Orleans, anyone that has property on the water has a boat lift. It’s almost necessary when it comes to the smaller storms that come through here. But if there’s a bigger one, then most people look for Boat Storage. It’s not a bad idea either with some of the hurricanes we get from time to time. Unfortunately even if your boat was in a boat storage unit, it didn’t help. Not much did then.  But like I said, if it’s just a small storm, the last thing you want is your boat in the water where it can get damaged by the dock or the rising tide.

Well the best boat lifts there are come from a company that has been in business for over 40 years.  In fact, Marine Travelift also appears at boat shows all over the world, in Helsinki, Finland and Dusseldorf , Germany just to name a few.  Their equipment was also seen in the last America’s Cup race in Spain.  As you all know, the America’s Cup race is one of the most prestigious regattas in sailing. Marine Travelift has had the honor of providing equipment to these teams that invest large sums of money into their sailboats so that has to tell you that they are the best or these teams wouldn’t have them.

Bill Werber, who was the oldest living ex-major leaguer and a teammate of Babe Ruth, died Thursday at the age of 100.

Werber was a career .271 hitter who led the American League in stolen bases three times. He played with Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Grove in stints with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. He hit .370 as the third baseman on the 1940 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds.

“Babe Ruth hit a home run and I wanted to show them how fast I could run,” Werber said in an interview in June. “So I get into the dugout, and finally Babe got into the dugout. He patted me on the head and said, ‘Son, you don’t have to run like that when the Babe hits one.”‘

What an amazing man with some wonderful stories to have told not only his own children but his grandchildren too.  Imagine the stories they have to tell their children.  Bill Werber died in Charlotte North Carolina in an assisted living center close to his daughter.

Well I got the disposable cameras back from all of the families my Christmas Angel Tree gave gifts to yesterday and took them to a one hour photo place.  The pictures were wonderful, most of them anyway.  I decided to put them on my computer and try and crop some of them and see if I could clear some of them up but my computer started giving me all sorts of photoshop errors. Now when it comes to things like that, I’m lost.  I don’t know a darn thing about fixing errors like that or any kind of error message as far as that is concerned.

Luckily I found a blog that told me what to do to resolve the problem.  It said that one reason why the Photoshop might fail to respond or give you an error message is if it is in conflict with any other program in the computer. I tried re-installing Photoshop since it said that can help to work out the problem the program could be having that makes it give the Photoshop not responding message.  That fixed the problem but if you try it and that doesn’t work for you, check out the blog because it has several ways to fix it.  I hope that helps you if you are having the same problem.

The following pictures are of a moose that went through a car’s windshield and out the rear window this month near South River, Ontario .

The VERY lucky woman driver ended up with just a broken wrist and needing a good bath. When you view the pictures you will wonder how the woman managed to survive.

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