Dog (puppy) dies after eating ecig "cartridge"

[lorikay13]

Ok...so I read this article and like most hysterical journalism....there are no facts in it...ZERO. So my first reaction was.....I call BS. I won't ask for pictures...but gimme some numbers at least....and define "cartridge"....no one uses cartridges anymore do they??? Anyway....so it was either a carto or some type of clearo/tank I'm guessing. But that's kind of important since there is a HUGE difference between a prefilled carto with 20 drops of 6mg liquid in it and a clearo with 3ml of 24mg liquid in it. Well long story short...it turns out it's no BS.....as everyone knows...or should know...lethal dosage is totally dependent on body weight no matter what the animal. So in this case no matter what breed of dog...at 14 weeks that's a little animal. Even a large breed dog at 14 weeks is only going to weigh maybe 20-30lbs right? My partner in crime here at SmokeStik...bigblue30 is also the admin at his local dog park. He says that cigarette butts are really a big problem and a leading cause of fatal poisoning in dogs.I know I'm guilty myself of the "my dog wouldn't do that" mentality....just last week I learned how wrong I was when I came home to find that the idiot collie had somehow gotten the child proof cap off a BIG bottle of multi vitamins and eaten the entire jar....(they were gummi's so they tasted good). Fortunately these vitamins were sweetened with sugar and not Xylitol or it would have been an instant death sentence. As it was 2 tablespoons of regular hydrogen peroxide and she threw them all up. But it made me re-evaluate the way I store my eliquid and more conscious of leaving it laying around. Because a bored dog really will do just about any stupid thing you can imagine.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/...ning_n_4809899.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Here are some numbers to put this in perspective:

What is the toxic dose?
The toxic dose for nicotine in pets is 1/2-1 mg per pound of pet body weight, while the lethal dose is 4 mg per pound of pet body weight.1 The type of nicotine (cigarette ...., nicotine gum, etc.) and the size of the animal make it difficult to have a "one size fits all" answer, but in short, according to Wendy C. Brooks, DVM, DipABVP: "a 40 lb dog would get very sick after eating one cigarette but would need 11 cigarettes to die from nicotine poisoning." Read full article: "Nicotine (Cigarette) Poisoning in Pets"


http://vetmedicine.about.com/od/toxicology/qt/nicotine-toxicity.htm

I will do some more research and try to find out what the recommended antidote is if there is one..I kind of doubt it. But whatever I find I'll post it here.

 

[LDS714]

New Flash - someone does something stupid, looks for way to shift blame.

Unfortunately, pets have no immunity to Darwin.

 

[Zurd]

what a bad publicity for ecig, but it was bound to happen, we have to be careful as to where we put our things, be it ecigs or anything else

 

[lorikay13]

What is the treatment for nicotine toxicity?
Ingestion of nicotine is considered an emergency, and time is of the essence. If possible, have the type of nicotine and the approximate amount of nicotine that your pet ingested ready for your vet for aggressive treatment. Your veterinarian will want to: induce vomiting if the animal hasn't already vomited, administer activated charcoal, and start supportive therapy -- IV fluids, medications to control seizures and other nervous system effects if indicated. The sooner the body is rid of the nicotine (by vomiting and breakdown in the liver) the better the prognosis.

It should be noted that stomach absorption of nicotine is poor, but tobacco can be caustic to the stomach. Antacids should not be administered however, because stomach acids are primarily what inhibit the nicotine absorption. Nicotine is absorbed well from the small intestines though, so prompt treatment will prevent more of this toxin from getting into the bloodstream.


Activated Charcoal Gel -300ml- HeartlandVetSupply.com

 

[Jay-dub]

Foods That Are Hazardous to Dogs | ASPCA

People still feed animals the scraps from the table...

 

[CES]

The dog had to have eaten way more than the owner said...and the story changed a bit in the telling, so i'm a bit wary of the story. But, IMO, the main point is to keep all potentially harmful stuff out of the reach of puppies, kids, kittens etc.

 

[lorikay13]

CES.....why do you say that? One thing they never said was how big was the dog? If it was a 3 month old Teacup poodle you could probably just blow a cloud at it and it would drop dead...LOL

 

[CES]

LOL at clouds and teacup poodles.

I don't quite buy that a "smear" of nicotine liquid on a tooth would be fatal, even for a puppy, or that such a teensy amount would have effects within 30 seconds. The lack of information about the concentration of the liquid and whether it was from a bottle or a cartridge, fallen from a pocket or taken from a table, all make me go "hmmm....."

(especially cause my oldest dog ate an entire pack of smokes when he was about a year old and a friend was house sitting. He was wired... very, very wired...but didn't actually get ill)

but, still, keeping potential toxins of any sort out of the reach of curious beasties only makes sense.

 

[lorikay13]

thanks CES.....and the reason I asked was not that I was challenging your opinion..I was genuinely intersted in the answer...because even after spending 15 years as a licensed pest control officer I still am unable to seperate the hysteria and hype from the facts. And I DO know how to read an MSDA and I do understand what an LD50 is and how that number is created. The bottom line is those numbers are largely useless.....for a variety of reasons......it's bad enough trying to make sense of them for humans....who are all one "breed".....but dogs???? There is simply no way you can make a blanket statement about much of anything referring to "canines"...with the exception of Xylitol. But it certainly does make sense to err on the side of caution.

 

[CES]

you've seen the new data on toxicity in people right?

Mayer B (October 2013). "How much nicotine kills a human? Tracing back the generally accepted lethal dose to dubious self-experiments in the nineteenth century". Arch. Toxicol. doi:10.1007/s00204-013-1127-0. PMID 24091634.

Looks like the numbers that have been hyped for all these years didn't have a good basis. The estimates from this new paper of and the LD50 of 6-13mg/kg for people falls right between 50 mg/kg for rats, 3 mg/kg for mice, and 9mg/kg for dogs - CDC - Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health Concentrations (IDLH): Nicotine - NIOSH Publications and Products - assuming that the numbers have any basis in reality, since i've kind of lost faith in the CDC these days.

with no data at all about whether there are any breed differences.... and breed differences are an excellent point!

 

[lorikay13]

also...as I know you well know CES....what people dont realize is that many of these "objective" experiments...most especially when they are looking for carcinogens...are just total hogwash because those lab animals have been specifically bred to GET CANCER.....that is why rats make such heartbreaking pets....all domestic rats are descended from lab animals....so they are all highly suseptable to getting cancer.

Aren't humans wonderful?