A Quayside resident is warning dog owners to be careful after her dog consumed cannabis-laced poop at Westminster Pier Park.
Deborah Henry was walking her dog Tobi along the upper gravel path near the fence on the morning of Sept. 19 when she let him off leash when no one was around so he could play ‘wolf in the wild’.
“I could hear him rummaging around snorting in the bushes, and went to chase him out when it got quiet,” she said. “He emerged from the bushes looking pleased, guilty and licking his chops.”
Later that afternoon, the 20-pound pooch snoozed on his bed and showed little interest when Henry asked if he wanted to go for a walk.
“I got concerned when he didn’t come pestering me before dinner, so went to check on him. The poor dog was lying beside a pile of vomited poop, appearing dull-eyed yet frightened, rigid and flinching to touch,” she wrote in an email to the Record. “He could prop himself up on his forelegs, but couldn’t move past that.”
While Tobi is normally the “bounciest dog you can imagine”, he was unable to move and needed to be carried. A neighbour drove Tobi and his owner to the vet, who confirmed the dog had consumed cannabis.
“It was a pretty scary time, I must admit,” Henry told the Record. “Fortunately, it was cannabis and not something else in it. They put him on an IV – the saline helped flush it out of his system. Once that started working, about three hours later, he was fine.”
Tobi was eager to go out for his morning walk the next day. While he tired out quickly, he was his normal, cheerful self.
“So, a word of warning to dog owners, especially of those wonderful eccentric dogs who like to eat poop. With the recent surge in availability of cannabis edibles, enough active ingredient can end up in human excrement to make an animal extremely ill,” Henry warned. “Don’t let them off leash in areas where you can’t see them every moment, especially areas where homeless humans may seek overnight shelter. Another reason why we as a community need to help our homeless find shelter and counselling.”
Henry has owned Tobi for just over two years, after adopting the terrier-shih tzu cross through a dog rescue society.
“He will eat what he wants, but I never expected that,” she said. “He is unfortunately a poop eater – usually dog poop if someone hasn’t picked it up and it’s out in the open.”
Henry is trying to spread the word about Tobi’s ordeal so other dog owners can take steps to prevent similar incidents if they’re letting their dogs off leash. Because the local senior doesn’t have a car and can’t make it to most off-leash parks in the city, she occasionally allows Tobi to walk off-leash when others aren’t around.
“He is certainly not going off-leash up there, that’s for sure,” she said. “I am much more careful where I am letting him off. I have always been one to make sure there’s not another dog he could bother or upset around.”
In September 2017, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association posted a warning on its website stating that the effects of using medical marijuana a in pets isn’t well studied but it appears dogs are more sensitive to the active compound in marijuana than people. It stated that excessive intake by small dogs can easily result in sign of toxicity, including salivation, sleepiness, fast or slow heart rate, depression, dilated pupils, bloodshot eyes, low body temperature, wobbling, pacing and agitation, vocalizing, sound or light sensitivity, inappropriate urination and vomiting
