WARNING! Zinc poisoning in dogs!

[Doberluv]

(from a horse magazine)


We heard from a reader that her one year old dog started falling over and acting sick. She took him to the vet, and it turned out he had eaten four pennies and a quarter at some time in his short life. The vet could not get the coins to pass through the stomach, so he ended up doing surgery to remove them.

U.S. pennies minted after 1982 have a copper coating around a zinc core, and contain roughly 2,440mg. of elemental zinc. One penny can cause zinc poisoning in animals. The vet explained that the smell of zinc seems to attract dogs. This particular dog had gotten on a dresser and picked out the coins containing zinc.

The zinc was breaking down in the gut and causing zinc poisoning. The red blood cells were exploding. The dog was suffering from anemia and the vet gave him some compound to help with couteracting the zinc. The had to do a blood transfusion and the bill was above $2,000.

Zinc posoning can also cause vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, weight loss, anemia, seizures, and kidney failure. It's amazing that a simple thing like a penny can be so harmful. Be sure to tell yourkids to keep those pennies off the floor where the dog can't eat them.

[Purr]

Geez! I always knew pennies were evil.....Dang. I'm glad I always get to the pennies before the dogs....thanks Carrie, that's really good to know.

[nedim]

Thanks for sharing, I bet you've saved someone a lot of future heartache.

[schmitzgirly94]

Thanks for telling me that!
I already knew that pennies were
toxic to dogs but I didn't know they contained
Zinc!!

[candy722]

That's nice to kn ow. I'll always keep little items away from TOki.

[Barb04]

Thanks for the info; I'm passing this on to my dog friends.

[bogolove]

Thanks for the info.

[Renee750il]

I'm going to move this important thread to the Health section and sticky it! Thanks for posting it, Doberluv!

[Husky626]

Thanks for sharing. Now I know to keep any coins away from dog. We have a big piggy bank in his room, gotta remove that! It sucks that it only cost 4 pennies and a quarter that turned into a $2000 bill.

[keyodie]

Wow. That's kinda sad. I'll be sure to keep a lookout for some loose pennies lying on the floor. Out of curiousity, are other animals attracted to zinc? (Like cats?)