Tessa was adopted from our rescue group in September 2007:
Her family would like to spread the word of how dangerous and ultimately fatal
Sago Palms are to animals. Please read their story below
For those that may not know, Camper was our new puppy that we got only 3 weeks
ago. Camper died on Friday, October 12th at 11:30am, 41 hours after eating part
of a Sago Palm.
Camper got a hold of a root of a sago palm and ate half of it, while playing in
the backyard.
About an hour after she had eaten a Sago Palm root she got sick, I got on-line
to see if Sago Palms were poisonous and the result was "yes". We took her to the
Vet immediately. The Vet gave her Charcoal to try to dissolve the toxins but she
couldn't keep much down. She came home Wednesday night but was very sleepy and
still getting sick. On Thursday I took her in at 9:30am for blood work and I
could tell the Vet did not like what he saw. Her breathing was labored and she
was somewhat lethargic. He said he would keep her about an hour but called 2
hours later and said she would keep her all day to watch her. I went to see her
at 6:30 that evening and (still being positive) asked the Vet if she could die.
When he said "yes", my heart sank. I sat with her and petted her but realized
she was not herself. Everyone in the Moody house was very upset but we were
keeping the faith. We all went up to see her Thursday night and felt better and
still had hope.
on,friday morning when we went to visit Camper my husband knew she was going to
die. She was jaundice, had not eaten since Wednesday and was very lethargic. We
all fell in love with this dog so quickly and it was like we lost a member of
our family.
The vet we took her to had never dealt with this before and was very surprised
at how fast she declined. I'm sure many dogs have died because of eating Sago's
but the owners didn't realize that is what it was.
Please spread Camper's Story to as many people that you know so that this does
not happen to another dog and family.
Friday afternoon we removed all Sago Palm's from our property and recommend you
do the same if you have dogs. We wish we could go back and would have known the
danger but we can only move forward and spread the knowledge that we gained the
hard way.
....