Tiger’s story – He’s a survivor!

This is Tiger and he’s a survivor, he is about 10 years old. Last year January someone poisoned him, and I’m telling you his story to create some awareness. Tiger’s story.

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Tiger’s story

I received a phone call from my mom one morning in January 2014 around 11:00 that Tiger wasn’t looking well and has a severe upset stomach and I advised her to contact the vet. Now the vets in Vanderbijlpark (and I think most of the Vaal area) only work certain hours of the day and she was advised by our regular vet’s  receptionist to give Tiger rooibos tea and the vet can only see him a 4pm …. seemingly not concerned about our sick dog. The more the minutes ticked by the sicker Tiger got, foaming at the mouth and blood started seeping out of his behind. I decided to get on the phone and call every single vet in the area, I finally managed to find one in the next town over that was available, by now Tiger was climbing underneath things (as dogs do when they feel they are going to die).  My brother went home from work to help my mom get him into the car, she rushed him over to the next town as fast as she could

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Tiger was loosing a lot of blood, he even left a pool at the reception area at the vet who acted by putting him on a drip. She initially thought that he had swallowed a sharp bone that was cutting his intestines as it wasn’t likely that if he had gotten poisoned that he would still be alive after so much time had passed. My mom left Tiger at the vet’s and returned home, shorty after I arrived at my mom’s house and I started scouring the yard. I found pieces of sausage together with some pellets that seems to have been vomited out and it was laced with little black spots. We contacted the vet and she advised us to bring it in for her to take a look at and that’s when we got confirmation that he was indeed poisoned with Temik aka 2 step. If you are not familiar with this poison, it’s illegally sold at taxi ranks and street named 2 step as most animals only give 2 steps after ingesting it. At this point I was grateful that out smaller dogs didn’t ingest the poisoned food as they would never have made it to the vet’s office.

It was touch and go for Tiger the next couple of days with his platelet count being very low but slowly he regained his strength and after a week he was allowed to come home. Him surviving being poisoned was largely to thank because he is a mixed breed dog, but this wasn’t the end of it, the dehydration because of the blood loss inflamed a skin hot spot he already had and he had to go back to the vet for more treatment, lucky he could come home the same day and his skin healed after a couple of weeks.

We gave Tiger products from Regal Pet Health to help him heal which worked wonderfully, you can’t even see where the huge sores on his back where.

Today Tiger is good and healthy and he doesn’t seem to have any lasting side effects from his ordeal. We have since moved and now he enjoys going to the beach and taking a dip in the ocean.

I’m hoping to one day work together with animal loving brands to get kits into people’s homes that can be administered to dogs when you suspect they might have gotten poisoned, the faster you act the better chance your dog will have of pulling through it and I would love to start a fund that can help pay vet’s bills for dogs that had gotten poisoned, Tiger’s vet bill was astronomical!

Please go have a read on this website for signs to look for that your dog might have been poisoned and how to act, they have steps available and instructions on how to make your own poison kit and remember the faster you act the better: Manderston.co.za

Please share this post and the Manderston website so we can create awareness with all your animal loving friends.