Chihuahua Stoned

July 3, 2005 4:16 PM

What do you do if your dog eats a bunch of pot?
posted by furiousxgeorge to Pets & Animals (45 answers total)

Is this or is this not a hypothetical question?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:20 PM on July 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

Call the police immediately! Marijuana is a prohibited substance!
posted by Count Ziggurat at 4:22 PM on July 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

Let's not jump the gun. Maybe the dog's undergoing chemotherapy.
posted by Gyan at 4:24 PM on July 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Laugh?

Seriously though, this or this(pdf) might be of help.
posted by selfnoise at 4:26 PM on July 3, 2005

Best answer: Seriously, here's a report. Seems they'll live.
posted by Gyan at 4:27 PM on July 3, 2005

Response by poster: it's a small dog, happened last night and not dead yet...but still very weirded out. I was under the impression pot would not have an effect on dog brain but it seems it should be clear of the digestive system by now.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:42 PM on July 3, 2005

You should obviously take him/her to the vet -- and should have already. They have emergency staff even on holidays (if you're in the US). I doubt they will call the police, this has to happen pretty often.
posted by ontic at 4:47 PM on July 3, 2005

I have seen a small dog eat a good once and a half of weed and butter mixture. It was unconscious for a ten hours or so and then recovered to normal. It was a old dog too.
posted by flummox at 4:52 PM on July 3, 2005

A friend of mine's dog (no, really) ate a bunch of pot not long ago. Basically, everybody freaked out while the dog slept like a baby, waking up many hours later seemingly unharmed. YM, of course, MV.
posted by box at 4:55 PM on July 3, 2005

An America's Funniest Home Video award is in your future.

. . . actually, all should be fine but I would keep an eye on the dog. If you have ipecac you could induce vomiting if it hasn't been long. Do this outside.
posted by caddis at 4:56 PM on July 3, 2005

My dog was fine after eating a bunch of weed. She also drank almost a full pint of beer someone left on the floor the same night. She was bigger though, about 25 pounds at the time.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 4:59 PM on July 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

Make the dog pay up. It totally ripped you off!

Seriously, though, I've seen it happen before with no ill effects. Make sure you leave plenty of water out.
posted by kamikazegopher at 5:36 PM on July 3, 2005

It'll walk around in circles, stare at the wall, and then fall asleep. Don't they have to hook up monkey's to IVs in order for pot to kill them? To the point where THC saturates the blood so thoroughly nothing can get through?
posted by geoff. at 6:07 PM on July 3, 2005

In the future induce vomiting, a vet recommended method is to feed your dog a mixture of 1/4 cup ea. of milk and hydrogen peroxide(standard drug store 3% solution). Besides working in about a minute, you get to watch your dog expel an amazing volume of dense, mousse-like foam.

In this case your dog will be be lousy company for a day or so but will be just fine.
posted by nenequesadilla at 6:20 PM on July 3, 2005

One word of caution: inducing vomiting has its own risks (aspiration of substances into the lungs and resultant pneumonitis). For a substance like THC, that is really not overly toxic, monitoring is probably a better option. Also, most things move out of the stomach rapidly, unless the pyloric sphincter is being irritated, so inducing vomiting won't bring up anything important -- dangerous substances will already be in the small intestine.
posted by gaspode at 7:25 PM on July 3, 2005

It's like hammering down a few temazepam. Knocks ya out in a deep impenetrable sleep. Damn freaky for those who watch it happen, but seemingly harmless when not abused.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:31 PM on July 3, 2005

My wife, who is a vet, will write from here:

Your vet will NOT rat you out. They just don't care, and it helps immensely to know what the dog got into (although pot is usually pretty obvious). Most dogs do just fine. They sleep A LOT, often pee uncontrollably, are fairly spaced out for a few hours to days (depending on dose), and some get jumpy and a bit paranoid as the sleepiness wears off. I haven't seen pot kill a dog directly, although one dog did freak and run through 8 lanes of traffic while high. She was fine.

Anyway, a trip to the vet won't hurt but they probably wouldn't do anything unless the dog was totally wiped out and needed iv fluids to correct dehydration. It is far too late to induce vomiting or give activated charcoal. It doesn't hurt to give your vet a call, and certainly the safest course of action would be to see your vet. If the pot was in brownie form, you may need to worry more about chocolate than the pot. It takes concentrated chocolate to kill a dog, but with a small dog your safety margin is smaller.

As you've found out, pot definitely effects the dog brain.

In the future, to induce vomiting, all you need is 1mL/lb hydrogen peroxide. Try not to exceed 30-40 mL even for your really huge dogs. If you don't get any vomiting in ~30 min, you can repeat the dose once. Make sure your H2O2 is fresh & fizzy, otherwise it's just H2O. I've never heard of mixing H2O2 & milk. It might work... The dog would probably be more inclined to drink it than straight H2O2. I wouldn't use ipecac, but definitely try to get the vomiting done outside. Do not use H2O2 to induce vomiting in cats--they are more likely to aspirate the foam.

Of course, there are things you don't want your dog to vomit, so you should try to talk to a vet BEFORE inducing vomiting.

Good luck with your pup!
posted by argybarg at 7:53 PM on July 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

this happened once to and ex-girlfriend's very small Chihuahua. He ate a whole eighth (i think) bag (dood!). He came out fine. The cool part was he was not a insanely nervous, yappy dog for the first time in his life. The hard part was trying not to laugh...sorry, it's funny stuff, the dog would probably be giggling with you if he could.
It should still be taken seriously though.
posted by hellbient at 10:25 PM on July 3, 2005

I hope there are no small children in your household.
posted by davidmsc at 10:48 PM on July 3, 2005

I've called the Poison Control hotline [phone] when a dog has eaten something weird or potentially dangerous. They're very helpful.
posted by radioamy at 12:09 AM on July 4, 2005

Obligatory Cheech and Chong reference:
"So where do you want off man?"
"Yo, right here will be fine man."
"Awwww, you aint afraid of a little speed are you."
"What? You got some speed man."
"Uhhhhh, no, but you know what I do have, I got a joint man. Here go ahead, fire it up."
"What's that?"
"It's a joint man, fire it up."
"That aint a joint man, that's a toothpick"
"What do you mean it's a toothpick?"
"Hey. You wanna get high man? I been savin' this for a special occasion."
"Woe, man, I ain't never smoked no shit like this before. What is it?"
"It's wierd man, my dog ate my stash, I followed him around for a week."
"You mean were smokin' dog shit man?"
posted by garethspor at 12:14 AM on July 4, 2005

Since this question seems to have been answered, I just want to mention for completeness' sake that this occurs in Full Frontal (in brownies, so chocolate is the more worrisome ingredient).
posted by Aknaton at 12:34 AM on July 4, 2005

could the dog get arrested by police dogs, though?
posted by matteo at 1:34 AM on July 4, 2005

Is this raw marijuana plantstuff or something that's been cooked into a fatty THC binder?

If raw, is it possible for a dog to metabolize and 'activate' on the THC without the fat?

I thought it was pretty much impossible for humans to 'activate' on pot just by eating it raw. If so, is this not the case for dogs?

I once had a cat that would routinely get into my stash, much to my annoyance. Mostly, she would just tear open the bag and roll around in it, snuffling heartily - working it in to the carpet and generally ruining it with cat hair. If she ever ate it, it would have been only nibbles. I took to keeping it in tins and other hard, sealable containers.

I've also met plenty of cats that never failed to magically appear when it was smoking time, lingering for the duration, and then departing only to promptly seek out a bite to eat and some water before enjoying a nice lazy nap in the sun or favored sprawling location - paws twitching dreamily.
posted by loquacious at 4:51 AM on July 4, 2005

A hash-brownie-devouring dog was also used as a plot device in the show Trailer Park Boys (Season 1, Ep. 4, ‘Mrs. Peterson’s Dog Gets F*cked Up.’)
posted by misteraitch at 5:29 AM on July 4, 2005

You realize that you're going to have to smoke the dog's poop now...
posted by ph00dz at 5:55 AM on July 4, 2005 [1 favorite]

I just wanted to mention how much I enjoyed the candidness and seriousness in this thread. I was expecting all kinds of nonsense from the DRUGZ ARE TEH EVIL!!!1 crowd. Were posts deleted, or did they just stay away?

(Oh, and add Half Baked to the pot-eating-dog movie roster.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:57 AM on July 4, 2005

In the future, to induce vomiting, all you need is 1mL/lb hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide is readily available in concentrations ranging from 3% to 35%. The 3% stuff you might use to bleach your hair or disinfect a wound. The 35% stuff you might use to utterly destroy your hair or burn a hole clear through your hand.

I suggest that the above recommended method of inducing vomiting would be fatal if you use a strong concentration of H2O2.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:26 AM on July 4, 2005

I hope there are no small children in your household.
posted by davidmsc at 10:48 PM PST on July 3 [!]

Because, you know, if a child were to get stoned, why, it'd be TEh EnD oF tEh WOrlD!!elevntyone!

Asshat.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:27 AM on July 4, 2005 [1 favorite]

Better get some extra dog biscuits in, maan.

Nah, the pooch will be fine. Until you give it the kicking it deserves for scarfing your stash, of course.
posted by Decani at 7:32 AM on July 4, 2005

What? You think a kids going to willfully eat a bunch of pot? It doesn't taste good. I would think
any child would lose interest well before ingesting any amount approaching toxic levels, if there is such a thing.
posted by wsg at 9:03 AM on July 4, 2005

My parents used to raise goats for milk. One of our less intelligent neighbours thought he was going to be raided so he hid a roughly kitchen catcher sized garbage bag full of pot in our stack of hay bales. Well apparently goats have the same affinity for pot as loquacious' cats. One of our does went to town on this bag consuming about 3/4s of it. She was stoned for a good five days (and few things are funnier than watching a stoned goat wonder around) but besides my parents having to throw out about three weeks worth of milk she was fine.
posted by Mitheral at 9:28 AM on July 4, 2005 [1 favorite]

wsg writes "any amount approaching toxic levels, if there is such a thing."

LDD50 is something like 1kg/kg. You'd realllyy have to be trying to OD on oral pot.
posted by Mitheral at 9:33 AM on July 4, 2005

LDD50 is something like 1kg/kg

the article you linked says the ld50 is potentially less than 1g/kg, orally.

for a 50 lb dog (22.7ish kg,) that means about 0.8 oz will approach ld50, and ld50 is the point when half the subjects die, so the potentially lethal dose is certainly even lower. Why did everyone assume this to be such a non issue?
posted by moift at 12:20 PM on July 4, 2005

It's unclear whether that article is talking about the LD50 of plant matter, or of THC by itself. More likely the latter... here are some corroborating numbers.
posted by xil at 12:45 PM on July 4, 2005

You're more likely to OD on munchies than on the pot that gave you the munchies.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:50 PM on July 4, 2005

good point xil, it probably is. but, still, from your link: "[ld50 is] 525 MG/KG ORAL-DOG"

I just noticed the title of the page says chihuahua, average weight 1-3 kg. If the numbers do indicate raw THC, the dog would only need to eat 10.5 to 31.5 grams (0.37 to 1.11 oz) of 5% weed. Admittedly unlikely, but as I said, the lowest potentially fatal dose is of more concern than the ld50.
posted by moift at 1:11 PM on July 4, 2005

Augh! I knew that number felt wrong (not going into medicine still a good career choice). Still, I've never heard of anyone OD from pot. Even the wars on some drugs goverments haven't been bold enough to make that claim that I can ever recall. And there are lots of people who have access to kilograms of the stuff.
posted by Mitheral at 1:12 PM on July 4, 2005

Felicity, sounds like you have a real party animal on your hands.
posted by growabrain at 8:07 PM on July 4, 2005

I feed my chihuahua cigarette butts, bourbon, and angel-dust and he's fine.
posted by pg at 4:17 AM on July 5, 2005

What do you do when your dog eats your pot?
Make him a pizza, dude.
posted by klangklangston at 7:11 AM on July 5, 2005

Hypothetically speaking, what about cats?
posted by mkultra at 8:16 AM on July 5, 2005

Ok. This is a weird coincidence or someone is reading ask metafilter for story ideas.
posted by rdr at 10:39 PM on July 5, 2005

OMG, I just saw that story, too, and had the same thought. Hmmm....
posted by mkultra at 6:41 AM on July 6, 2005

As was the case with Tank. His owner explained to Humble that his roommate had baked a tray of potent marijuana cookies, leaving a warning that consumption should be limited to a quarter of a cookie. Left alone, Tank gobbled the entire batch. And the baking soda? "The animal had the munchies," Humble says.

LOL. So the dog ate about four dozen doses, eh? I'll bet it wasn't even remotely a good trip.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:01 AM on July 6, 2005