Did your dog eat weed products by accident? You’re not alone
Before legalization, it was rare for vets to see animals that had unwittingly consumed edibles, bud and lotions
WATERLOO REGION — Veterinarian Anne Woolstencroft treats at least one dog every month after the animal swallows edible marijuana products such as gummies, cookies, brownies or cake.
“I must say I have never seen a cat for marijuana toxicity, but I definitely regularly see dogs, and more frequently since cannabis had become legal, because I think it is just more accessible,” said Woolstencroft, whose clinic is on Max Becker Drive in southwest Kitchener.
Dogs are much more sensitive to THC — the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana — than people, she said, and most dogs are small compared to their owners. So, a full-size gummy licked off a coffee table has a huge impact on a dog.
That’s when Woolstencroft gets to meet the dog’s owners.
“They are like: ‘Oh my gosh, my dog seems very sleepy, lethargic,’ sometimes they vomit, very common clinical sign is urine dribbling,” said Woolstencroft. “It’s funny — they just look a bit stoned.”
It is stressful, alarming and disorienting for both dogs and owners, she added.
“The clinic is 16 years old and I can say prior to cannabis becoming legal, I probably saw two cases, but we are seeing approximately one a month,” said Woolstencroft.
“And if I were in emergency medicine, I would see one every overnight shift,” she added. “It is really quite common now.”
Last week, a young couple brought in a puppy that had eaten some cannabis. The couple are not cannabis users, so the dog may have found the discarded remains of a marijuana joint.
“Fortunately, we are not seeing fatalities, but I still don’t prefer it to happen,” said Woolstencroft.
Recreational marijuana use was legalized in Canada in October 2018.
About a year later, edible products became legal. Both are widely available now with the proliferation of cannabis retail shops.
Not long after that, Woolstencroft had dog owners coming to the clinic with near-catatonic pets.
“Fortunately, they tend not to get extremely sick,” said Woolstencroft. “If they are unable to walk and they are just dribbling urine, usually we just do supportive care, which means fluids and monitoring.”
If the marijuana is coated with or contains chocolate — brownies, cakes, cookies and the like — it’s a “double-whammy.”
“We get into real trouble when the cannabis is in something like chocolate — chocolate is toxic to dogs. ANNE WOOLSTENCROFT KITCHENER VETERINARIAN
“It’s difficult to initially diagnose most of the time because people are not very forthcoming, and the symptoms are so generic.” RIANNE ROWE KINGSDALE ANIMAL HOSPITAL MANAGER
“We get into real trouble when the cannabis is in something like chocolate — chocolate is toxic to dogs,” said Woolstencroft.
When a dog has ingested chocolate, a vet may induce vomiting to help eliminate the toxin. But marijuana has strong antinausea properties, complicating the normal treatment.
“It doesn’t work, you can’t just make them vomit up marijuana,” said Woolstencroft.
Dog owners should never leave edibles where a dog can get them.
Watch what your dog is doing in the park — make sure it is not eating the remains of a marijuana cigarette.
And have a look for any bud that may have fallen to the floor.
Dogs will eat it all.
If your dog eats some of your stash, do not hesitate to tell the vet everything you know, said Rianne Rowe, manager at the Kingsdale Animal Hospital.
“It’s difficult to initially diagnose most of the time because people are not very forthcoming, and the symptoms are so generic,” said Rowe.
She called it an important issue as cases have become common. When owners bring their dogs to the animal hospital, they are told there is no judgment behind the questions from staff.
“I think that is the biggest challenge with it, people not being forthcoming about what happened,” said Rowe.
Almost every case is an accident, she said, but once in a while someone brings in a lethargic or unresponsive dog that the owner is treating with cannabis products.
“There is always that person who read online this would help and we are like, ‘Nooooo, not this way,’ ” said Rowe.
Numbers can be hard to find, so Mohammad Howard Azzeh, who is completing a PhD in population medicine at the University of Guelph, studied data collected by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals during the 2009-14 period.
The society has a poison control hotline, and Azzeh had access to that data.
Where it is legal, more dogs ingest it, Azzeh said in a telephone interview about his major findings.
“That was a pretty important finding — cannabis calls for dogs were increasing substantially throughout the study period,” said Azzeh.
As the use of edible cannabis products increases, he wants users to think more about safeguarding it from their dogs. It’s not just edibles either, dogs can lick up pieces of bud that fall to the floor.
“This is becoming very common, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that this is an increasing problem,” said Azzeh.