Of Mice and Dogs

I was checking up on some of my friends on Dogbook the other day and learned that one of my friends was very, very sick.  She found a dead mouse and, since it smelled really yummy, she ate it.  Luckily, her humans saw what happened and brought her to the vet right away.  She didn’t feel so good for a little while but she is going to be just fine.

Mice live just about everywhere and usually don’t have all that much contact with dogs but in the winter time, mice, like most creatures, like to live where it is warm.  They look for ways to get into nice barns or basements and attics or houses.  For lots of reasons, humans don’t like having mice living in their houses.  There are bunches of different ways for humans to get mice to not live in their houses and one of them is to use this bad stuff called poison.  Poison is bad because it makes the mice died.   I know, I don’t think poisoning animals is right, but humans worry about mice carrying diseases and stuff so they don’t want them in their houses.

When humans put out poison to get rid of mice, most of the time they put it where pets can’t get to it.  That’s a little easier if the pets are dogs cuz they can put it up high in rafters and such but cats are a different story cuz they can climb anywhere.

Some poison comes in packages that pets can’t get into so humans with pets who want to use poison should get this kind.  They also make bunches of things called “traps” to get rid of mice.  Some traps are nasty but there are some that are okay.   Personally, I think if humans don’t want mice to live in their houses, they can use the nice kind of trap that captures mice alive so they can be set free in another place, but that’s just me.

Anyway, my friend found one of the mice that ate some of the bad poison.  Because the mouse had the poison in its tummy, and my friend ate the mouse, my friend got sick.  I understand this doesn’t happen very often to pets, especially to dogs but it does happen. 

When a pet eats a mouse that ate poison and get sick, it’s called “secondary poisoning”.  How sick a pet gets from secondary poisoning depends on a lot of things like how big the pet is and if he or she got any of the real poison or just what the mouse already had in their tummy.  Sometimes, the poison can be the mouse’s mouth so it really strong.  If a pet eats the poison that hasn’t been in a mouse’s tummy where it gets made less harmful, it is called “primary poisoning” which is much worse.   If she had found the packet of poison and ate that, well, she would have primary poisoning and be much, much sicker and maybe even died.

Cats who live on farms and stray dogs are more likely to eat dead mice than dogs who have nice houses like we do.   Cats and dogs who live outdoors don’t have enough to eat so they will eat dead animals.  Pets who have nice homes get enough food so they aren’t hungry all the time. That’s what they tell me but you could have fooled me.  I’m always ready for another meal or treat.

Anyway, please be careful and never, never eat dead mice or any other dead animals.  First of all, it freaks out humans and second, it could make you very, very sick.

Stick to eating stuff your humans say is okay.

Your friends,

Zeva

P.S. Blatant self-promotion.  Valentine’s Day is almost here so why not get your favorite pet a super Valentine’s Day gift like our Best In Show (dogs) or Cats Rule! gift basket.