The dos and don’ts of pets and pot

BELLEVILLE – Although research is still in the early stages, veterinarians warn that THC, the chemical in marijuana that causes the user to to experience a high, is toxic to all pets.

Marijuana is just as toxic to cats as it is to dogs, according to the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association. The only reason cases of marijuana toxicity in cats aren’t as common is that cats are picky eaters, the association says. Photo by Lori-Anne Little, QNet News

Fewer than 60 research papers have been published in North America on the effect marijuana has on pets, according to an article by Carlton Gyles, a University of Guelph professor of veterinary pathobiology. But almost all of those papers report on the potential toxic effects of marijuana on pets, Gyles says.

Kathleen Cavanagh, online editor for the Canadian Veterinary Association, says in an article posted on the association’s website that “dogs are proportionately more sensitive than people to THC.”

Quincy is a 10-month-old King Charles Spaniel who ate the butt of a joint while out for a walk. 
Photo by Lori-Anne Little, QNet News

Elizabeth Rice, a Belleville dog walker, has experienced first-hand the effects of marijuana on a dog, and she says it was terrifying. Two months ago, after walking her friend’s dog Quincy on the Bayshore Trail beside the Bay of Quinte, Quincy found and ate the butt of a joint before she could stop him – though Rice thought it was just a cigarette butt. He began acting strangely.

“He started to get uneven on his feet and his head was going to one side. And then he collapsed on the floor,” said Rice.

His owner rushed him to the vet clinic and told staff there she hadn’t at first known what was going on, but that when she picked up Quincy she could smell marijuana on his breath.

Quincy was OK in the end. The vet staff induced vomiting, gave him saline intravenously, and watched him for seizures.

Rice said she tries her best to keep Quincy from eating things on the trail, but since he’s a 10-month-old puppy, sometimes he is just too fast for her. When it’s things that she knows to look for, she said, she has a better chance of catching them, but she never thought she would have to look out for marijuana.

“That was the last thing I was looking for, you know? I mean, Kleenex – he likes Kleenex, so you have to watch out for that on the trail this time of year. But I wouldn’t recognize a joint if someone handed me one and told me that it was a joint. So I wasn’t thinking  of it.”

With marijuana now legalized in Canada, Rice said, she is concerned that what happened to Quincy will happen to more dogs – especially if people are smoking around the West Zwick’s Island dog park.

Elizabeth Rice walks Quincy on the Bayshore Trail most days. Photo by Lori-Anne Little, QNet News

“You can only imagine if it starts happening near and around there, especially the dog park. I mean, somebody might not be as lucky as we were.”

When they went to the Coleman Veterinary clinic to treat Quincy, Rice said, the vet was also concerned.

“The vet did say they are getting incidents (involving pot ingestion) about once a month now, and they are expecting it to escalate with the fact that recreational marijuana is now legal.”

When QNet News reached out to Coleman Veterinary, staff member Jacqueline Cote said that there has not been enough research done on the subject for her to comment at this time.