Please spend a minute or two reading this and crosspost to as many people as possible. Sending the emails as blind copies will safeguard your address book. This message is designed to make everyone aware of how tragic the results of slug pellets can be. It’s the painful story of our beloved Jessie.
I sent this message as an email to my work colleagues because I couldn’t face telling them what had happened the night before, when I walked into work, it would be just to upsetting for me. The email has now been forwarded to the US to one of my cousins and she is pushing out over there. My aim is to let everyone know about Jessie in order to prevent it happening to others, globally. This could have been a young child and not a family pet. Also, I’m angry that the people who make these things can justify the labelling in the name of making profit when they are selling poison to the general public.
I do know that there will be people reading this who will say "It’s only a dog". The bond that a dog lover has with their dog is unbelievably strong. I would not expect a non-dog lover to understand that and I respect their views but as I have said, this might have been a small child.
Hello.
I don't feel that I want to explain what happened when I get into work tomorrow, so I'll explain now.
We have always put slug pellets down in the garden, for years we've done it, Each time being careful not to get the nasty ones. On the front of the packet of the latest lot, read "Animal repellent". For a couple of weeks the packet had been sitting on the side in the kitchen and not used but yesterday morning, 29 April 2009, I noticed some slug damage on the vegetable patch. Like an idiot, I spread some around.
Jessie had been in and out of the garden all morning but Sharon let her out about 4:10pm yesterday just before she left for shopping. When Sharon let Jessie back in the house, she came in bounding and happy like she normally is.
Jessie had never touched slug pellets before but in that short time in the garden she must have lapped them up, these so called animal repellent slug pellets!
I got home from work at about 6:50pm to find Jess hyperventilating, shaking, delirious and salivating. I picked her up and rushed her to the vets. By the time the vet got to her she was going into convulsions. They tried everything, oxygen, valium, colonic irrigation (ice cold water) and continually dowsing her with ice cold water to bring her temperature down. A dog’s normal temperature should be 101.5 when rested; Jessie’s was off the scale. After the irrigation it came down to 108 and then 102. At this point the vet said that she has a chance.
A few hours rushed by and Jess calmed down a lot although not responding to any external manipulation; talking to her and petting her etc. Her colour came back and her heart rate was almost back to normal. We were very hopeful at this point. The vet stopped the irrigation but within an hour her temperature was back up to 108 and rising. The vet told us that she had only a 50/50 chance. This brought reality back to us with a bang.
More colonic irrigation revealed bright blue slug pellets coming out in her excreta! The vet then told us that he had only known of one dog in his experience which had survived the passing of pellets in this way and the next 24 hours would be crucial.
We knew that she would be in overnight so we had to make plans to leave. All the way through this event, Jessie had been blinking quite normally; it was her only outward sign of normality. Just before we left, Sharon noticed that she was not blinking any longer.
As a result of this, the vet explained that she had suffered massive brain damage which firstly affected her heat receptors in her brain and as she had stopped blinking it meant that her brain was shutting down.
Oh, bless her. I really don't want to sound dramatic but I'm in bits writing this. We made the decision to let her go. We went home and spent the rest of the night balling our eyes out.
We're going back to pick her up today and we're going to bury her under one of the trees in the garden. I just couldn't cope with thinking of her getting burnt along with other unknown pets in a kiln somewhere.
As I have said, on the front of the pellet container it very clearly, in a 'marketing kind of way'! said "Animal Repellent". On the back however, in tiny, tiny writing, it said "harmful to pets".
Jessie was a huge part of our lives, making us laugh daily. We will miss her more than any non-dog lover will ever understand. We will deeply miss her loyalty. She was a strong protector, healthy and in the prime of her life, she was just 6 years old. We had plans to breed her this year as some of you know. She was a character, a cheeky monkey but most of all, she was our friend.
Nanite Jess.
I am not looking to make this one of those never ending email chains but for goodness sake, if you have friends and family with dogs like Jess then please pass this on so they know to avoid this happening to them. I am happy for my email address to be put out if anyone wants to know more information about the product that killed Jessie. Paddyreilly007@hotmail.com
Thank you for your time.