Cats may have eaten some garlic--what's the appropriate response?

April 26, 2015 6:36 PM

When we returned home after being away since Friday night we found a (possibly) gnawed garlic clove. Cats are probably responsible. Is this a situation where we should take the cats to an emergency weekend vet?

The clove was wizened and skinless and was probably fished out of the bowl we keep the garlic in by a bored cat sometime this weekend. They've done this with hot peppers in the past but never garlic. When they retrieve a hot pepper they bite it and bat it around until it winds up under something and is forgotten.

In this case the clove had definitely been batted around--it was right out in the center of the floor when we returned. It doesn't look like much if any was ingested, but the clove was...mangled. We aren't sure whether the cats chewed on it, another possibility is that one of us stepped on it as we walked in with the lights off, or that our catsitter stepped on it on Saturday evening. The room smelled distinctly of garlic.

There are two cats, both adults and around 10-14 lbs. Internet research is frustratingly vague about the dose which can cause anemia (maybe as little as 1g/kg or "less than one clove").

The internet also thinks that you shouldn't wait for symptoms to develop if your cat has ingested onions or garlic, but we aren't sure they have, and and I suspect taking two cats to the emergency vet on Sunday night could run into the thousands of dollars even without kitty gastric lavage or whatever the first-line treatment is.

Thoughts?

(Photos forthcoming, sorry)

posted by pullayup to Health & Fitness (12 answers total)

Onions and garlic can IIRC damage the kidneys. My 13 lb cat once ate - I think - a small bit of chopped onion. The poison control line for animals told me that she would need to ingest at least something like a pearl onion's worth of onion to be sick. YMorCatMV.

Shorter. Call poison control. [phone]
posted by Medieval Maven at 6:46 PM on April 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Call the vet and ask them if you should take your cats in?
posted by picklenickle at 6:47 PM on April 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

If the clove of garlic is still there, the kitties probably weren't very interested in it aside from a plaything. I mean, if they tasted it and liked it enough to eat more than a lick there would probably be an appreciable amount of garlic missing, right?

Such a negligible amount of garlic got eaten here, your cats are probably fine. I wouldn't worry about this one bit unless they give you a reason to (i.e. show symptoms or odd behavior).
posted by phunniemee at 6:48 PM on April 26, 2015

Response by poster: cat 1 | the garlic clove, currently weighing in at ~1g
posted by pullayup at 6:53 PM on April 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

I think it would be madness to take both cats to an emergency vet for this when you're not even sure that either of them ate any of the garlic. If you're really worried, make a vet appointment Monday morning. But honestly, based on what you've said here I don't think I would bother with that, either (and I am a cat lover who spent $7000 in less than a year on a sick cat once).
posted by amro at 6:54 PM on April 26, 2015

Best answer: Wow, yeah, there's so little missing from that there's no way the cats could have eaten enough to hurt them. They probably ingest more harmful things every day by licking off whatever cruft they collect on their feet. Or whatever residual nasties are creeping on 100 bills these days.
posted by phunniemee at 6:56 PM on April 26, 2015 [12 favorites]

Response by poster: cat 2
posted by pullayup at 7:15 PM on April 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

Anitra Frazier's The New Natural Cat tells you to persuade a sick cat to eat by following her recipe for 'Delicious Garlic Condiment'. My experience is that cats hate garlic, and that some of Anitra Frazier's advice is insane. But she does seem to follow it herself, and would presumably have noticed a massive mortality rate.
posted by feral_goldfish at 7:26 PM on April 26, 2015

Response by poster: some of Anitra Frazier's advice is insane

I worked for a food co-op for almost ten years and part of the reason I'm so jumpy about this is that I actually do know people who injured and killed cats with misguided "natural" diets and supplements, most notably garlic for fleas or homemade cat food lacking taurine (as part of a "raw" or, bizarrely, vegan diet).
posted by pullayup at 7:32 PM on April 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I found a vet toxicologist who kept repeating

It totally depends on how much onion, how much she ate, and what her weight is. It’s probably going to be fine, but watch for any difficulty breathing, lethargy, vomiting, or other ‘sick’ sorts of behavior. If anything changes or she seems ill in any way, contact your local vet and have her examined right away. Dogs and cats have some blood cells in reserve, so if it wasn’t a heavy exposure, you may not even see a problem. Just watch for those signs and have her treated if they occur.

You can also contact Animal Poison Control via the ASPCA. There’s a charge (about $85), but they will work with you and your vet to resolve the case.
https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control

for small one-off exposures. With more forceful advice to call the vet/vet poison control for larger exposures or for a kitten.

There are two cats, both adults and around 10-14 lbs. Internet research is frustratingly vague about the dose which can cause anemia (maybe as little as 1g/kg or "less than one clove").

I found this:
Most cases of toxicosis are attributed to a single episode of accidental ingestion of raw onion or feeding of foods containing onions or garlic. The toxic dose has been found to be as low as 5 g/kg in cats and 15 g/kg in dogs. A medium-sized onion (2 to 3¼” in diameter) is approximately 150 g, and the average weight of a garlic clove is 6 g.
in a vet educational resource.

I don't think there's been proper research where they figured out the LD50 or clinical thresholds for garlic in cats as they did do with onions for dogs; they have just observed that it's bad in repeated feedings or moderate to large single doses.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:34 PM on April 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

I think it looks like the garlic has been stepped on. Cats have small mouths and sharp teeth, so I think a bite would look smaller and cleaner.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 10:36 PM on April 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I have cats who gnaw on everything, and I smash garlic cloves in order to peel them, and that looks like a smashed garlic clove rather than a gnawed garlic clove to me. Maybe smell the bottoms of your shoes?
posted by jaguar at 11:00 AM on April 27, 2015