My sons 5 year old Corgi had a slight limp over the weekend that has progressed into pronounced lameness in all 4 legs and a reluctance to walk. She will barely get up and this is definitely NOT typical for Morgi the corgi!

My first thought is LYME disease so I ran her into the vet this morning for a looking over and bloodwork. Her Lyme test came back negative, as well as one form of erlichia that they tested for. She was getting ready to prescribe Doxycycline just to cover her bases when I remembered that over a week ago I saw Morgan rummaging around in a box that had blown over during a severe windstorm. This box contained a few green pellets of mouse poison of some type that the mice had stashed. I wasn't sure she actually ate any but I told the vet and she ran a clotting test on the dog....it took her blood 13 minutes to clot when it should have taken around 5 or 6!! Long story short, she was ready to prescribe an antibiotic that binds Vit K which in turn would cause more internal bleeding!! Thank goodness my sporadic memory worked today.

I had no idea one of the symptoms of mouse poison was muscle soreness....the vet said that the dog actually bleeds into the muscles and in severe cases barely touching the dog causes bruising. (and of course, in really severe cases causes death) We started her on Vit K and she had improved within 8 hours...

Be aware that mouse or rat poison can affect your dog from 2 to 4 weeks after ingestion (depending on which chemical it is) I had thought that if a day or two went by with no gastric or neurological symptoms present, it meant the dog was OK.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Just a heads up..... even if you put mouse or rat bait out of reach ,the rodents carry it around and leave it in places your pets and kids can!!!

Thanks for the info, learn something new everyday. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Khoi Pham