New Brunswick dog owner Wendy Cail is warning the public after her four-year-old Labrador retriever mix Willox tested positive for drugs following an outing.
“I was totally shocked. I was really, really shocked. The vet said that she had traces of THC and cocaine in her urine,” said Cail.
Last Tuesday, the pair spent the day in the Greater Moncton area, where Willow was supervised or on a leash, but by bedtime that evening, it was clear Willow wasn’t herself.
“She normally follows me everywhere; she wasn’t doing that. She was just laying very dull in my La-Z-Boy chair,” she explained.
The next day, she took Willow to her vet for a full workup.
“They did blood work, they checked her heart, which her heart rate was quite slow, they thought, compared to other times that she’d be examined. Her eyes were dilated, still dilated some, basically we did a full physical,” she said.
Cail was able to collect a urine sample which was used to do a toxicology report that confirm the presence of THC and cocaine.
“She was digging furiously in the snow trying to get something and I pulled her out of there, but it doesn’t take long,” she said. “There’s drug paraphernalia everywhere and, of course, we’ve got snow, so even as an owner, especially if it was in powder form, you wouldn’t see that. You wouldn’t know that there was anything there.”
This is the third incident where it’s believed Willow got into THC since Cail got her at just nine months old. In 2021 and 2023, Willow was taken to an emergency vet where it was suspected the dog had cannabis in her system, but it never confirmed with tests.
The Maritime Animal Hospital in Moncton says cases of dogs coming into contact with cannabis can happen as often as every two weeks.
“It is almost always that they’re out for a walk, they pick something up, they don’t know what it is and then the dog starts acting abnormally,” said Dr. Genevieve Machum. “THC is much more prevalent, but the more serious drugs, maybe one or two cases a year.”
Dr. Machum says it’s hard to diagnosis and they often treat it based on symptoms and use medications they would in humans such as activated charcoal and even Narcan in some cases.
“Things like cocaine and methamphetamines, they would be stimulants, so the dogs are very anxious, they won’t settle, they tend to vomit, they will seizure sometimes if they have to much and then you have the other ones that make the dogs very drowsy,” she said.
She says the severity really depends on the size of the dog and how much they ingest.
“Some medication can be very potent like opioids. Fentanyl trends to be very potent, so you don’t need very much to do a lot of damage,” she said. “THC is one that they can generally tolerate quite a bit without getting too serious.”
She says owners should take their dog to a vet as soon as they start noticing symptoms and keep a close eye on them during walks.
“The doses that they pick up on the street are normally not that much, so generally, like I said, it depends on the size of the dog and how much they get, but a big dog getting a little bit of residue outside on a walk, generally with aggressive treatment, they normally are fine,” said Dr. Machum.
Cail says Willow seems to be eating and drinking again, but her energy level isn’t quite back to normal yet.
“I’ve ordered a couple of different types of basket muzzles and, although sadly, if she inhaled something, the basket muzzle will not prevent that, but it will prevent her from eating something that might be in the snowbank or might be on the grass,” she said.
After the incident, Cail took to social media to alert other dog owners as she says she doesn’t want anyone else to go through what she and Willow did.
“I’m scared to death. I love my dog to pieces and there’s just no way that I want that going on,” she said.
For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
