Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been reading with great interest the threads about toxic rats and the theories behind them. I agree with a recent person that links the toxic rats to the tainted rats fed poisonous dog food from China. I think lots of rat suppliers feed their rats dog chow.There has been no problem until now, so those rat breeders should not be considered irresponsible-who knew, you know? I have been personally affected by this, as I believe this is what killed my best dog I ever had (pit bull mix.) My wife and I went on a weekend beach trip and since "Bandit" would never eat her normal food (Proplan) if we left her, I thought it would be a treat if she was given a canned beef tips with gravy meal which no dog can resist. The 1st morning the person taking care of Bandit called us to say she had had a strong seizure and had flopped on the ground and relieved herself while having the seizure. We raced home and while bandit was at least 10 years old, she was still very fit, so this all of a sudden behavior had me perplexed. She lived about another month, having seizures if she got too excited, but then she'd be O.K. Of course, this was 6 months to a year before anyone had heard about the tainted dog food from China. When that story came out, and I read the list of possible types of tainted food, I was positive, My beloved dog had been poisoned. In the future, I will be not so trusting and do research on the food before I feed it to any of my animals. R.I.P. Bandit

hi so sorry about your loss.i breed boxers. i had the same thing happen to me 5 months ago to my 9.5 year old show dog. she was perfectly fine but for some reason i thought i would switch my boxers to a higher quality dog food. one day while walking her she got excited while greeting somone and colapsed and went into a seizur. i had my vet check her for toxic food and the test came back neg. he thought to check for a brain tumor as he told me this is the common cause of seizures in dogs of her age. so we went ahead and took xrays.sure enough she had a brain tumor.saddend i took her home and that same day she had two more seizures and died in my arms.i was devastated.a couple of months later i got a phone call from the person who ownes the brother to my dog.would you believe he died of the same exact thing a brain tumor that caused the seizures. once again i am so sorry for your loss.
greg

Yeah, my dog had some boxer in her too, I think. I'm glad you posted that story because I'd rather believe that she had a brain tumor and I didn't poison her. The timing of the "special treat" and her first seizure still will haunt me though.

yea. i know how you feel.
greg