As the title suggests, my dog ate about 7 grapes as she stuck her face in a plastic grape bag that was left on the counter. It is 10pm where I’m at so no vet is open…. however there’s an emergency vet 2 and a half hours away. Is this enough of an emergency to make the drive?
She is a 60lbs boxer.
UPDATE: It has now been about 9 hours since the incident. She is completely fine. Not a single symptom. Her vitals were great. We’ll continue to monitor her.
@marissa90 2+ hours is too long. I would call the emergency vet and explain your situation. I live over an hour from town and when my baby got into raisins recently they walked me through giving her hydrogen peroxide to make her vomit. I would suggest phoning them so they can give you the right dosage and instructions to do it safely.
@marissa90 Take her in!!! I just went through this with my dog. Grapes aren’t toxic to all dogs, but one or two can kill some dogs! You just don’t know which one your dog is.
Once they go into kidney failure it can be too late to reverse the damage.
I would still call and ask if you should induce vomiting before going in, but go in either way. You’ll need blood tests to make sure her kidneys aren’t damaged.
@brennanskates No, I have bloodwork scheduled with my own vet. At the emergency vet they induced vomiting and took her vitals, that’s it. But they did say that not having adverse reactions is a great sign.
@marissa90 It sounds like they don't really understand potential acute kidney injuries (vet here). Bloodwork should have been taken as a baseline to know what the kidney values were before potential damage, and then repeated everyday for 2-3 days to make sure the kidneys were not affected. 75% of the kidneys need to be damaged to show up on bloodwork.
@brennanskates I see. That is good to know. Unfortunately that was the closest emergency vet (took me 2 hours and 40 minutes to get there due to rural roadways). Thankfully the appointment with our vet of 12 years is shortly after they open on Monday, and we’ll continue testing from there, I’m sure.
@marissa90 I’m glad you have bloodwork scheduled! My dog had his blood tested that night and the kidney levels were normal. The next day I took him back for another blood test and the levels had doubled. He had to stay overnight for 48 hrs on IV fluid to flush his kidneys.
It took 3 weeks but his levels are back to normal now.
So great that she is acting normal! But definitely keep that appointment for peace of mind!
@marissa90 yes absolutely. grape dosing depends on a lot of factors, some are fine and others have suffered irreversible renal injury after a single grape. you need to seek vet care ASAP or you risk the potential for renal failure.
also the longer you wait trying to figure out whether to attend a vet or not, the more you waste your approximately 4h window of opportunity to have the vet make her vomit. after that, theres very little they can do aside from monitoring her, giving her supportive care and managing any consequences.
@newwalkinchrist Agreed. I’ve seen dogs come in to emergency after 3 grapes with stomach upset, minor symptoms and then there was one lady who mentioned excitedly that she figured out her French bulldog LOVES grapes and we found out she’d been feeding them to him for weeks. Ran bloodwork, kidney values were up. Dog ended up being fine.
@kellyawarren7 After 2 hours, it’s usually too late to give hydrogen peroxide- the food can’t have already been digested. It is great if you can give a dose within 2 hours, the sooner the better:
@marissa90 I was at a dog outing at sea once and someone brought an entire big bowl of grapes. Yeah, you guessed it, as dog treats. I only noticed them feeding the grapes to the dogs when I got back from a swim with my own dog. I was amazed at the ignorance of all the people thinking that was ok. I told them grapes are as bad, if not worse than chocolate for dogs. Nobody believed me, so I googled it and showed them several sites that confirmed it. At that point, 10 dogs already ate several hands full of grapes. But they agreed to stop it after I told them. As far as a I know, none of the dogs got sick afterwards. (We kept in contact for a while.) I'm so glad I was off with my dog at that moment... All dogs were 60lbs labradors. I guess that's another thing to consider since labradors tend to have a higher tolerance towards dangerous foods as far as I know.
