Create Your Own First Aid Kit In Case Your Pet Is Poisoned

As a certified and licensed pet transport company we naturally carry a First Aid kit in the vans, and while we are exercising the dogs on route we are careful as to where we exercise them.

Last year (2103) Sands and I adopted two Galgos (Teo and Tigra), and for me these were the first dogs that I had owned (as a family we had cats when I was growing up), although Sands had grown up with dogs as their family pets. As such I have been on a pretty steep learning curve with respect to owning a dog as a pet: how to look after it, best ways to exercise, keeping them healthy, how to treat the various ailments etc.

Unfortunately here in Spain it is all to common for people to put poison down to get rid of stray dogs (and cats) so one thing I did some research on was how to treat a poisoned dog, and what we should have in a first aid kit.

First thing to stress is that I am not a vet, and obviously the priority is to get your pet to a qualified vet, although this isn’t already possible, and even the best sites on line (for example Pets Poison Helpline) offer contradictory advice. For example they suggest that the First Aid kit should contain Hydrogen Peroxide 3% to induce vomiting, yet they say you should never administer Hydrogen Peroxide to a pet without first checking with a vet as sometimes it isn’t appropriate to induce vomiting at home.

For what it is worth this is the First Aid kit that the Pets Poison Helpline suggested:

• Hydrogen peroxide 3%
• Oral dosing syringe
• Teaspoon or similar to measure quantity of Hydrogen Peroxide
• Liquid hand dish washing detergent
• Rubber gloves
• Triple Antibiotic ointment (not for use with cats)
• Vitamin E oil
• Diphenhydramine tablets 25mg
• Ophthalmic saline solution
• Can of tuna packed in water
• Sweet electrolyte-containing beverage
• Corn syrup
• Vegetable oil

All very good but they don’t actually give any indication of how much Hydrogen Peroxide to administer, so am not sure what you are expected to measure! The guideline that I found online was five cc’s (1 teaspoon) for every 10lbs – administered with the sugary drink to help them digest it.