A DOG owner feared her pet was going to die after it ate a hallucinogenic drug while on a woodland walk in Ilkley this week.
Laura Samuel, 28, is now warning other dog owners to be on their guard, especially if walking through Middleton Woods after the incident, which she described as really scary.
Laura took her yellow Labrador retriever, Mollie, for her usual walk through Middleton Woods in Ilkley on Monday morning.
But shortly after arriving home, Laura said that her dog started having seizures, wasn’t able to hold her weight, and lost control of her bladder.
“We do a route through Middleton Woods, through the rugby field and the park. She was absolutely fine for the whole walk. Nothing unusual happened, she didn’t disappear for any length of time," she said.
“But when I got home she was really quiet. I offered her some water and just started jutting her head back and forth and I thought that was weird.”
Laura and her partner called Ashland's vets as Mollie’s condition worsened, tests were run, and the results found that her kidney levels were ‘off’ which indicated that she had most likely consumed a hallucinogenic drug.
“It was really scary, she means a lot to me, she’s my first ever dog and I thought she was going to die,” Laura said.
“We managed to get her downstairs, but she looked like she was about to fall asleep standing up and then she’d just suddenly jerk so my partner was having to literally hold her up, and then she started to wet herself.”
Mollie then had to stay in the vet overnight, her blood was flushed and she is still having to be fed charcoal to clear the toxins from her body today.
“Whatever she had ingested, it was quite a strong or large quantity of it because it has affected her kidneys so quickly,” Laura added.
Laura, who is part of a local dog walker group said that she had been in the woods just two days prior and it was “absolutely fine.”
“As a dog walker, at this time of year, you do worry a bit about what is being left around,” she said.
The UK’s leading vet charity, the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) advises that if your dog has eaten something harmful, to contact your vet for an emergency appointment immediately.
Ashland's Veterinary Surgery has been contacted for a comment.
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