Two local cats killed by anti-freeze
Posted By Sara Ross
Updated 1 year ago
Jeff Olimer cuddles three cats inside of his Rosslyn Road home in Orillia. Missing from this scene are Soon and Smokey, two of his feline friends who passed away late last week. Olimer said Soon “seemed to stagger” when she came into the house Thursday morning.
“She was always a little unsure on her feet ever since she was born,” Olimer said. “So, I didn’t think anything of it.”
Veterinarian Dawn Adare at Pine Grove Veterinary Hospital said when animals consume ethylene glycol (radiator anti-freeze) they will appear drunk because the liquid turns into alcohol inside their body. Olimer observed his cat having “trouble breathing” and “going into convulsions,” so he took her to the veterinarian.
Adare completed blood samples on the feline and believed she had ingested radiator anti-freeze.
“(Ethylene glycol) gets into the kidneys and crystallizes,” she said. “In the process of crystallization it just ruptures all the cells inside the kidney, so it basically destroys the whole kidney.”
Soon passed away later that day. The same day Olimer noticed his other cat, Smokey, was displaying the same symptoms as Soon such as vomiting and shallow quick breathing. Olimer brought Smokey to the veterinarian on Saturday to discover she had also been poisoned by anti-freeze. She was euthanized when it became evident that she would not survive.
“I’m not a very happy guy right now,” Olimer said.
Olimer looked in his neighbour’s driveways and spoke with them to find out if anyone had recently filled their car’s radiator, or had a boil over.
“There was nothing,” he said. “I thought how could this happen?”
Cats only need to ingest about a teaspoon of radiator anti-freeze for the effects to be fatal, Adare said. She said it supposedly has a sweet taste, which means animals will drink it on their own.
“They will drink it voluntarily, so it is pretty hard to pin it down to malicious (behaviour),” she said. “Clearly there must be some lying around and they either drank it on their own, or someone (has given) it to them.”
Adare said ingesting ethylene glycol results in an “extremely serious condition” that is “almost always fatal.”
“It is a bit seasonal in the fall when people are filling up their (car radiators),” Adare said. “They have a little bit of a spill over and it gets on the driveway and the animals come along and lap it up it.”
Although there is an antidote for pets once they drink ethylene glycol Adare said it must be given within a couple of hours of consumption to be effective.
“I think (people) need to be aware (that it could kill pets),” Adare said. “If they are filling up their own (car radiators), or if their car boils over, they make sure they clean that up.”
sross@orilliapacket.com
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