Jacqui

Thanks for all the kind words. I believe it costs nearly $1000 just for the vial of anti-venin. The other costs on top would be for the equivalent of intensive care for a few days, plus follow-up treatment. Added to that, it happened on a public holiday, so there would have been extra charges. Because an hour had already passed when symptoms were seen and there would have been further delay waiting for the on-call vet to arrive, Tina wouldn't have been able to be saved. Given the amount of running and jumping about she had done in all the excitement, she would have unknowingly moved the venom through her system very quickly. Death was quick at least, and in the last hour of her life she was asleep.

We used to have insurance, but the premiums were so steep once the dogs turned 9 years old, there were so many exclusions, and the excess was $500 so I cancelled it when it came up for renewal. The one time we did claim (Tina again - she ate mouse poison) there was so much paperwork to fill out. The vet's bill was $600 for that, so I only got $100 back. It concerns me that once the vet knows you have insurance, $$$ signs mean they are more likely to want to treat your dog with every medical thing going (chemotherapy etc) when your dog is so old or sick, the kindest thing would be to euthanase it.

Kapri

So sorry Jacqui, RIP Tina

My colleague's dog died yesterday from a paralysis tic so it's also worth reminding pet owners to check for these too.

Family of 3

Sorry to hear that, Jacqui, and thanks for the warning.

And on the subject of things that are poisonous to cats - poinsettias (although I never knew that about lillies.)

bcworld

Amazing. I logged on to Facebook this morning and a friend of mine had uploaded some pics of a bunch of flowers her mum had sent her...mostly lilies...with one of her cats photo bombing the shots! Have sent her this link straight away!

sonlymewalter

I've mentioned it to a few people since reading on here and they had no idea either - like you say, seems lilies and cats wasn't that well known

On another note; my dog has been scratching like mad over the past week and we thought it might be fleas (from the cat as the cat goes out all day).

Both her and the cat were flea free (they get regular treatment) and it turns out as an allergy. It's something in the garden she's been rubbing up against - all her underbelly is bright red with scratching - then I found this and we have this in our garden http://www.pawsaway.com.au/Common/Pd...sletterweb.pdf

Got rid of the plants, keep her away from the grass - gave her a bath in soothing oatmeal and all gone.

I've never realised plants / grass / flowers could be so harmful to our pets until this thread so thanks to OP and other posters for highlighting it

new wael

sorry to hear about your dog, Tina . dogs are faithful to the end..

koalakim

I just found an article on it and says it also relates to the petals, leaves and not just the pollen. A friend of mine used to have them but always cut the stamens out and she had cats and had no problems but I don't think I'd want to take the risk! Maybe her cats were well behaved and didn't jump on the table but it also said even pollen in the air can affect them.

I once got in a panic (back in the UK) when my cat threw up some bright red sick, thinking he was about to keel over and rush him off to the vet, I looked at it a bit more closely and discovered he'd just eaten a Geranium flower! Fortunately they aren't on the list!

I always dread the cats eating spiders but fortunately they just tend to sit and stare at them and don't even attempt to play with them.

agap

thanks for sharing valuable information.

furkew

considering there are millions of bunches of lilies commercially grown in Australia and hundreds of millions in Europe, and nobody has heard of this before (including myself, and I have worked in cut flowers all my life, and now work on a farm the grows lilies) I think we can all assume the risk, although there, is extremely low.