Fear of Overdosing my Dog

At 1:30 in the morning, I heard my cocker spaniel, Buffy, pacing my bedroom. She never does that. Normally, she hardly moves since, in the winter, I often cover her with a towel and it is still in place when I get up in the morning.

I heard her nails clicking on the spaces between our throw rugs. I tried to ignore her, then she jumped up with her front paws on my side of the bed and pawed at me.

I figured she had to go out. I turned on the hallway light and tried to coax her down the stairs. She walked around bumping into things and couldn’t find the stairs.

Buffy has glaucoma and has already lost one eye to the disease. Her ophthalmologist said that she would lose vision in her remaining eye within 6 to 18 months. She takes 4 different types of eye drops for a total of 12 drops per day.

Sometimes Buffy gets pressure spikes in her eye and loses her vision. This has happened twice where we caught it soon enough that she regained her sight. The first time (in September), I gave her extra Latanoprost eye drops. The second time (in December), I brought her to the ophthalmologist and she reduced her eye pressure from 75 down to 7 by using a needle to relieve her ocular pressure. Pressures above 35 feel like a migraine headache.

With each blindness episode, Buffy has regained less of her sight. The ophthalmologist stated that if her eye pressure stays up for more than a few hours, Buffy will permanently lose her eye sight and will be blind.

I knew eventually Buffy would go blind, just not at 1:30 in the morning.

Several blogposts tell her story. (First diagnosed, losing her eye, temporarily blind, and her stages of glaucoma).

That night, I carried Buffy down the stairs and outside. She only peed a small amount. Having eliminated any GI upset, I figured her restlessness was due to an ocular pressure spike. I gave her two drops of Latanoprost, hoping that would help since the ophthalmologist had given her 4 drops of Latanoprost only five minutes apart during the December visit.

I carried her back upstairs and went back to bed. I was really tired, and just wanted to sleep.

But Buffy continued to pace.

As I lay there trying to sleep and having a foggy brain, I remembered that Buffy’s ophthalmologist had given me some Tramadol pills for her last procedure in December. Tramadol is a pain medication. The vet had written to use it to reduce squinting (a sign of eye pain).

I thought it would help with her migraine until I could bring her to the vet the next day. I really just wanted to go back to bed.

I carried Buffy back downstairs and gave her a Tramadol pill with a treat. When I closed the bottle, I noticed it said, “Give ¼ tablet.”

I had given her a whole pill—4X the dose the vet had prescribed.

It’s probably not that strong, and she might just be a bit more tired. I figured she’d be okay, so I carried her back upstairs and went to bed.

I snuggled down under my blankets and started to relax. Maybe she wouldn’t be okay. I grabbed my phone next to my bed and googled Tramadol overdose.

Common signs of tramadol for dogs poisoning are:

• • Weakness.
  • Vomiting.
  • Diarrhea.
  • Bloody vomit.
  • Respiratory changes.
  • Black-tarry stool.
  • Change in thirst or urination.
  • Seizures.
  • Collapse.
  • Hyperthermia.
  • Tremors.
  • Death.

Death! I had to get the Tramadol out of Buffy. This cleared my head!

Time is critical when it comes to overdosing. It had been at most fifteen minutes since I gave her the pill.

Then I googled “How to make a dog vomit.” I’ve owned dogs for over fifty years and I never had to do this before. I read about giving her a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide for each ten pounds of body weight.  The site said this could take up to 15 minutes for her to vomit.

I carried her back down to the kitchen and found the hydrogen peroxide in the fridge. Good thing I had some!

Five minutes after I gave it to her, Buffy barfed up an incredible amount of food, still in her stomach after six hours.

Finally, I could go back to bed! Buffy settled down and fell back to sleep. But, I was wide awake for hours, realizing I could have really hurt her from my stupid mistake.

The next morning, Buffy was fine. No pressure spike and she regained her vision.

Lessons learned:

• If you have a drug that should be given in amounts smaller than a full pill, cut some up in the bottle, so you will remember to give a smaller dose.
• Read the label for all drugs that you give to your dog, especially if you don’t give this drug often.
• Pay attention. Wake up and think about your dog and not just wanting to go back to sleep.
• Keep hydrogen peroxide handy—you just never know when you may need to make your dog vomit.

In doing research for this article, I found that Buffy might have been fine with one pill of Tramadol at 50 mg. She weighs about 30 pounds and the maximum dose for dogs is 1.8 mg/lb., which is 54 mg.

But you never know. It really made me think about ways to prevent this from happening again.

Read more about Tramadol and overdosing your dog with these two articles.

https://www.golden-retriever-dog.com/veterinary-help/tramadol-for-dogs/

https://www.vetinfo.com/symptoms-of-tramadol-overdose-in-dogs.html

Have you ever overdosed your pet? What did you do?