Smoking Kills !!!

This is obvious for most humans and you won't see many dogs smoking ( I hope !! ), but cigarettes can kill dogs !! How? Cigarettes and cigarette butts contain nicotine. Nicotine is toxic to dogs. One cigarette but can contain upto 8mg nicotine and a toxic level is 0.5 mg per Kg.

We recently had a poor puppy come in to the clinic showing nicotine toxicity. It was having seizures, tremors and had a heart rate of over 200. The owner reported that the puppy had passed some cigarette butts in its feces, It had been having diarrhoea for a few days - another symptom.

The puppy was put on supportive intravenous fluids and sedation while she recovered.

Nicotine toxicity causes excitation, rapid breathing and heart rate, drooling, vomiting diarrhoea, twitching, depression and can progress to collapse, coma and death.

If you do smoke, please keep cigarette butts in a secure container that your pets cannot get into,