Recently my regular house-sitting gig needed me for a few days to take care of their house and their pets; a bungalow on the east side of Salt Lake City, an older Ausie Shepherd, a cat, and a rabbit. I’ve been the house sitter before with this situation and all has been just fine. Not this time.

On the Friday evening. the dog walk proceeded as norm even the following Saturday morning, the dog was a little lethargic butnot too bad for an older dog. But when I got back from my other job later in the afternoon, I found the dog lying outside in the snow bank. Happy enough, but I though it was just weird that the dog wanted to be ling in the cold snow.

So I ushered the dog inside but it was not long before the dog wanted to go back outside and lie in the snow. Well OK, if that’s what you want to do.

The next morning, the dog was more lethargic and worried me some. I was contemplating the notion of going to the emergency pet clinic on a holiday weekend.

Around three in the afternoon, with no improvement, I made the decision to go to the clinic.

Rat-Poisoning!

And I was lucky and so was the dog. Her blood-clotting factor was around 100 seconds, the time in seconds it takes for blood to clot, a value that should be around 12-20 seconds.

The treatment is vitamin K.

Without the treatment the dog may not have survived the night. I was lucky.