I poisoned my daughter's dog!

I learned a very valuable lesson Tuesday that I want to share with all my friends and fellow dog lovers. I accidentally poisoned my daughter's dog.

Maddie has demodectic mites and a yeast infection which is causing her hair to fall out and her skin to get very red and sore looking. Don't freak out. All dogs have demodectic mites and unless they have a poor immune system like Maddie does, you never even know they are there. Usually medicine takes care of the problem. Maddie gets sick from the ivermectin that the vets treat the problem with so my daughter keeps taking her off of it.

Monday night, I noticed that Maddies skin on the front of her neck (which is bald right now) was very red and I was afraid that it was getting a yeast infection again. I didn't have any meds for it and I knew that Amy was going to take her back to the vet later in the week, but I didn't want it to get infected in the mean time. I got the bright idea to use some diluted tea tree oil on the skin because I know that it is a natural anti-bactereal and anti-fungal.

Tuesday morning when I got Maddie out of her crate to take her potty she didn't want to get out which is very unusual. She was shaky the whole time we were outside, but it was pretty cold so I didn't think much of it. I put her back into her crate and went to work.

A little while later, Amy called to tell me that Maddie was trembling all over and she wasn't able to stand very well. I told her to call the vet and tell them that it was an emergency. I thought perhaps she was dehydrated because she has had runny stool every since the vet changed her diet because she has pancreatitis. (Did I mention that Maddie has a very poor immune system?)

I called the vet to tell them about the tea tree oil so they wouldn't wonder what the wierd smell was and that is when I learned a very important lesson. Tea tree oil and other essential oils are not good for pets. TTO is toxic to cats and can bad for dogs in high doses. In Maddie's case with the poor immunities, she had a reaction to it and scared the heck out of me.

The vet gave Maddie steroids and anti-histamines and got the reaction under control. (I still felt horrible, scared and stupid.) Then they did a skin scraping and tested her for other problems.

When I went to pick Maddie up she was so happy to see me that she pee'd on the floor. Most of the time that makes me angry, but I was so happy that she was ok that I didn't mind.

According to Dr. Stevenson, who is now my hero, Maddie will always have to deal with these problems because she has a very compromised immune system. Her mites are back in full force, she still has the yeast infection and now she has a staff infection. We have new medicine to help her and I know that we can get her cleared up. Dr. Stevenson has a friend who is a dermatologist and he is going to consult with him about the mites and skin infections.

Maddie will continue to be spoiled rotton and we are going to do the best we can to try to boost her immunities, but I will never try any home remedies without checking with the vet again. It's just not worth it. I hope that this helps somebody else because I would hate to think that nobody but the vets bank account benefitted from my mistake.