Is Rodent Bait Safe For My Dog?

When I was in high school I had a really cool job at a veterinarian clinic.  This was great because I love animals and always wanted a dog growing up.  Unfortunately, my family only had cats growing up.  During my time working there, someone would always bring a dog in because it was sick after eating something it should not have eaten.  The veterinarian would call me into his office and show me an x-ray and say, "what do you think that is?"  And, I would try to guess if the object inside the dogs stomach was a shoe, a toy car, a necklace, etc.  Let's just say that I found out that cats are a lot smarter than dogs pretty quickly.

It is because of this reason that I understand when people are very concerned about me putting rodent bait around their house.  Their dog will eat anything and they are nervous about having to make an emergency trip to the vet.  So, I think it is important to discuss why rodent bait is the most safe and effective treatment you can do for rodents.

How About I Just Use Snap Traps?
This method will work if you have the patience.  The problem is that you can only kill one at a time with a snap trap, while with bait, you can kill dozens at a time.  The battle that you are fighting if you are just using snap traps is that you may not be able to keep up with their reproduction rate.  A female mouse can have 72 babies a year, so you might only be slowing things down a little.  Also, dogs and cats set snap traps off pretty easily when they try to sniff the trap.

Will My Dog Die If It Eats The Bait?
A dog would have to eat a whole lot of bait in order for it to be a lethal dose.  The dosage that is needed to kill a rodent is a way smaller than what would be needed for a dog for two reasons.  First, they are obviously a lot smaller and require a smaller dosage.  Secondly, a rodent cannot throw up.  If they eat the poison, they cannot get it out of their system, but a dog will get sick and throw up.  This means that a dosage of a couple grams could be fatal for a rodent, but not have much of an effect on a dog.

Where Will You Put The Bait?
Despite the fact that it would require a larger dosage for a dog to be affected by the rodent bait, we still place them in areas where the dogs will hopefully not get to them.  The boxes that we use for our pest control company in Seattle, Washington are made out of a hard plastic and only open with a key.  They call them "tamper proof" boxes, but I have seen dogs that can chew through anything, so placement is very important.

What Are The Signs Of Rodenticide Poisoning?
The purpose of this blog post is not to convince you that rodent treatments can never be harmful, it is just to point out that they are probably safer than most people think.  Still, if you have rodent treatment performed at your home, you should always be aware of what to look for in case your dog does eat the rodenticide.  Typically, the dog will show signs of lethargy and be vomiting and have diarrhea.  It may also become disoriented and by panting a lot.  If you see any of these signs, we would recommend getting them to the veterinarian as quickly as possible to get a vitamin K injection.

I hope that this information has been helpful to you.  If you have any questions about rodent pest control or if there is something that I have missed, please leave your comments and I will try and address them.