Be on the lookout for harmful Sago Palm seeds this winter | Pet Peeves
Just last week, I saw a poor little dog (a King Charles Cavalier) that had ingested a Sago Palm seed. The owners had a buried fence that stopped short of the Sago Palm Plant, but a seed had fallen into the yard and the dog found it and began to chew on it. Sago Palm seeds must really taste good, because a lot of dogs will chew on them.
The Sago Palms will be dropping their seeds on into January and February. The seed is about the size of an apricot pit and is bright orange in color. These seeds are toxic with a capitol T. Every part of the plant is poisonous, but the seed has the highest concentration of toxins.
Fortunately, the owner saw the pet dig into the ground and start chewing on the seed. She took the main part away from the pet and brought him to the veterinarian within 30 minutes of ingestion. Time is of the essence with this sort of thing because if we can get them to throw up within 45 minutes, we can get most of the seed out of the stomach.
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I will never understand why the Sago Palm became a popular garden plant. They are also poisonous to humans. I would be very worried about having one of these in my yard if I had young children. Children think everything should go in their mouth.
In the spring this plant puts out tender young shoots called “pups” that grow at the base of the plant. Dogs like to chew on these too. Also, yard work in the late spring involves trimming away yellow and brown leaves from the plant to make room for new green growth in the late spring and summer. This creates a ready pile of toxic debris for the pet to chew on.
When a dog ingests the plant, he may react immediately, or it may be a while before he shows symptoms. The pet may drool excessively, vomit and have diarrhea within 15 minutes of exposure or he may just lay around acting depressed. As the poison progresses in his system, it causes weakness and lethargy. The toxin attacks the liver, damaging liver cells and causing liver failure. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, lack of appetite, and jaundice. This plant toxicity is often fatal.
We made this little dog throw up. The vomit definitely had small bits of orange seed in it. We then gave him an injection to stop the vomiting. The vomiting needed to be stopped so we could follow up with Activated Charcoal. Activated Charcoal is a special formulation that will bind toxins in the intestine. It is not the regular charcoal that you buy at the store.
As the Activated Charcoal was making its way through the digestive tract, binding toxin, we started intravenous fluid therapy to flush out any toxins that may have found their way into the blood stream.
If your pet’s exposure to Sago Palm is not discovered until well past the time when vomiting will remove the offending material from the system, treatment can still move forward. Your pet will still be given the Activated Charcoal and be put on fluid therapy. Improvement and response to treatment is determined by monitoring liver enzymes and how well the pet is feeling. One would want to see the liver enzymes coming down and the pet acting alert and eating.
This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Be on the lookout for harmful Sago Palm seeds this winter
