Keeping Your Pets Safe from Deadly Rodent Poison

 Detroit Lakes veterinarians are seeing an increase house pets being poisoned by mouse traps.

Vets caution pet owners and their neighbors to avoid using rodent traps that include poisons.

“Traps, whether they be the old fashioned snap traps or the newer glue traps, if that’s an option, I would go that route over poison,” said Detroit Lakes Animal Hospital Veterinarian, Dr. Samantha Zehr.

This year, however, the rodent population may make that difficult.

“This year has been really, really bad for mice,” said Dr. Zehr. “We’ve seen a huge population. I’ve talked to multiple clients who have just seen an overwhelming number.”

If you do decide to buy rodent poison, there’s two main types of poison that are used and one is much worse than the other.

So it’s always important to check the front of the label to check out what the active ingredient is to make sure you’re picking the lesser of the two evils.

“Recently they’ve released a neurologic class of mouse poison. That’s the one we have the biggest concern with,” said Dr. Zehr.

Those products contain Bromethalin.

There is no way to treat pets that have ingested the poison.

All vets can do is watch and hope the pet pulls through.

“I tell people to remember it by the “meth” that’s in there. Meth is bad, Bromethalin is bad,” said Dr. Zehr.

An animal that has ingested a Bromethalin product will often appear to have stiff movements and if left untreated, may begin having seizures.

If your pet shows any of these symptoms, it’s important to get them to a veterinarian as quickly as possible for the best chance of survival.

Treating a pet for ingesting rodent poison can run from $500 to over $1,000.

Remember the best way to prevent a pet from getting poisoned is to just avoid using the products.