★★★★★
Vinegar
★★★★★
We live in rural South Florida and have a lot of bufo frogs in the yard. Our small dog was outside in the evening after a rain, when it was prime weather for them to be out. When my wife called him in, he didn't come. She found this unusual, so went out to find him, and he was staggering around in circles under a bush. She came in to call for me to help, but by the time we were able to get to him he had fallen over and had lost all motor control. He had clearly been poisoned by a frog.
By the time we got him inside where we could see him in the light, he looked done for. We are a long way from an emergency vet and doubted we could get him there in time. Within the first couple of minutes he could not move a muscle and his eyes were rolling back in his head. Although we washed out his mouth as best we could with his jaw locked, he had ingested too much poison already. I also noticed his ears were sticky, which from what I read now after the fact sounds consistent with the poison.
In desperation I ran a quick search on the web for remedies and ran across your site. I tried vinegar as you recommended, and when I spilled it on the outside of his mouth or got some in with an eyedropper he licked his lips - his tongue must have been the last muscle he could use and I suppose it was an involuntary reaction. By then he had gone entirely stiff with all his muscles contracted, and only his tongue and eyes were moving. He probably drank (not including spillage) about 1/4 cup of vinegar - this for a 10 pound dog - before we started to slow it down, as that's a lot of vinegar. Relative to size, that's like an adult person drinking a quart or so. Ugh! We also kept petting him, talking to him, stretching his limbs, and stimulating his paws and tail to try to get back sensation - I have no idea if this was useful or not.
After about 15 minutes with no apparent change I was trying to get him to take some egg white, as I read elsewhere, but with little luck. We still doubted whether he was going to make it. However, he slowly started moving his head to follow my daughter around, then stretched his front paws, and shortly stood back up and started staggering around again. Within a few more minutes, he was walking more normally but in circles, and a few minutes later was running around the house with his tail back out. He isn't quite himself yet an hour later, but we're hoping the remaining effects will wear off. It was a remarkable recovery after we'd assumed that we had lost him.
It sure seemed like the vinegar did it, unless the effects were wearing off on their own. Thanks for the recommendation!
