A dog owner is urging others to recognize the warning signs of an allergic reaction after her 6-year-old dog, Bear, went from healthy to fighting for her life in a matter of minutes.
@thedogstaff, a content creator whose account is based on videos of her three rescue doodles, recounts a terrifying ordeal that began with what she thought was an injured paw.
“The scariest thing happened [to] my dog yesterday,” she says. “I thought Bear just came inside and hurt her paw. Within minutes, I was rushing her to the emergency room.”
Text over her video reads: “Attention Dog Owners: Thought my dog was fine … [We] ended up in the ER ICU fighting for her life.” Her video has gotten more than 14,000 views.
The content creator says Bear had been acting normally. At lunchtime, she let her three dogs into the backyard while she ate a salad outside. She tells her audience they were out there for no longer than 10 minutes.
When she called them back inside, Bear was nowhere to be found. Eventually, the dog emerged from the living room, where @thedogstaff says she found an “entire stomach of vomit and just diarrhea all over the area rug.”
Initially, she thought it was one of her other dogs, who often eats grass and vomits it up. But then she saw Bear collapse onto the floor.
“She is totally listless. She’s panting, [and] she’s wheezing. I can tell something is very wrong,” says @thedogstaff.
The woman says she hurriedly cleaned up the mess before rushing Bear to Red Bank Veterinary Hospital about 30 minutes away.
Bear’s condition takes a turn
At the emergency hospital, veterinarians discovered that Bear’s blood pressure was very low and her pulse was weak. Doctors also found abnormalities in her mucous membranes and concerning blood work. They administered IV fluids and Benadryl. They said that Bear would need to remain hospitalized until her blood pressure stabilized.
The woman and her husband returned home only to receive an alarming phone call: “Her blood pressure had responded to the fluids, but then immediately crashed even lower than it was.”
“I start crying. My husband’s so upset,” says @thedogstaff, adding that the situation was particularly difficult due to her husband’s aggressive cancer. “This is his girl,” she says of Bear. “This was already a scary week.”
Veterinarians warned that the next few hours were critical. They administered epinephrine to counter what they diagnosed as a severe allergic reaction. Bear responded to the medications, but the family was warned that the symptoms could return.
“They’re thinking that she had an anaphylactic reaction,” says the woman. “They’re thinking that she must have been exposed to something at some point early in her life, and her immune system just went completely overactive.”
What caused Bear’s allergic reaction?
The most worrying part of the story is that the exact cause remains a mystery.
@thedogstaff says that she noticed Bear had been holding up one of her paws, raising the possibility that she was bitten or stung by something while outside. But the dog didn’t react to pressure when vets examined the leg, leaving them with no obvious explanation.
The family searched the backyard hoping to find a reason for Bear’s severe reaction. The woman says they found a few wasps but weren’t sure whether their dog had encountered one.
“She walks through bushes. She’s, you know, a dog,” says the woman. She says veterinarians told the family it could have been anything, and it could happen again. Or, she says, “it may never happen again.”
Did Bear survive?
Luckily, Bear’s condition began to improve later that evening, and the family was able to bring her home the following day. She was discharged with medications including prednisone and Benadryl.
Now, @thedogstaff hopes that sharing her experience will help other dog owners recognize an anaphylactic reaction before it’s too late. “You have to act so quickly,” she says. “I feel like it’s our duty as human beings to share these stories so that maybe we can help save another dog.”
What are the warning signs of anaphylaxis in dogs?
One aspect of Bear’s ordeal is how easily her early symptoms could have been mistaken for an ordinary upset stomach.
According to PetMD, anaphylaxis affects the lungs and airways in most species, but in dogs, “the gastrointestinal tract often releases histamine directly into the liver,” which causes severe vomiting and diarrhea that “may occur suddenly and appear to come out of nowhere.”
Other warning signs include lethargy, facial swelling, itching, and hives.
PetMD says that “most canine reactions are to insect bites or stings (commonly bees, wasps, and venomous ants), medications, antigens in vaccines, or chemicals.”
Dogs are particularly susceptible to insect bites on their paws, noses, and faces because of the way they interact with their surroundings.
VCA Animal Hospitals notes that these bites can cause allergic reactions “ranging from mild irritation to life-threatening shock.”
Veterinary Partner, an online community of vets created by vets, says that it is not unusual to have no idea what caused a severe allergic reaction in a dog.
It urges pet owners not to waste time figuring out what happened and to immediately take their animal to the emergency veterinarian.
It also notes that “in many cases, the first time an animal is exposed to an allergen that will cause anaphylaxis, they won’t have an obvious reaction,” but that the second time they are exposed and every time after, there is a possibility “they can develop life-threatening signs of anaphylaxis” because “pets don’t tend to outgrow allergens like people do.”
@thedogstaff
Subplot News reached out to @thedogstaff via TikTok direct message.
