Seeing your pet high from marijuana can be a scary experience and does require special attention when it happens. Especially, as it affects dogs more severely than it does people (up to 10X’s more). Hopefully, this can put your mind at ease and maybe save you from a future unnecessary vet bill with some first hand stories.  

Increasing Occurrence 

With the legalization of marijuana in many states, there is an increasing number of pets getting rushed to the vet for getting hold of edibles. It makes me wonder how many regular sweets and such these naughty dogs are getting into. 

Symptoms Your Dog May Have After Ingesting An Edible 

Red Eyes/Glazed Stare 

Bobbling Head 

Wobbly 

Inability To Stand 

Vomiting 

Incontinence 

Shaking 

Sensitivity To Sound & Movement 

Drunken Like Appearance 

Just wants to lay down and keep still 

No DIRECT Deaths Reported 

As far as I’ve been able to research, there have been no direct deaths for dogs or people from ingesting marijuana. However, there have been secondary reasons for death such as the dog choking on their own vomit, or running off of a 10-story building after a toy, or because of the toxic ingredients of the edible itself like chocolate or nuts. So as scary as it is, your dog will likely be just fine once it’s run it’s coarse. Just keep a close eye on them, giving them plenty of rest in a quiet, dimly lit room.  

When to take your dog to the vet? 

It can be difficult to know whether or not to take your dog to the vet, especially if your not positive wether or not they are high, or if they actually got into poisonous. I’ve had a couple panicked people ask me whether or not they should rush their pup to the vet. 

What did they eat? If you know your dog ate an edible containing toxic ingredients like chocolate or nuts, you’ll want to watch them extra closely, or to be safe, go ahead and take them to the vet. The size of the dog matters, I knew a Labrador Retriever that ate a whole regular sized chocolate Hershey bar and didn’t have any issues afterwards.  

Uncontrollable Vomit If you dog is vomiting uncontrollably, they could possibly choke, irritate their throat to the point of bleeding, or get vomit down the wrong pipe which could cause pneumonia. A vet can provide anti-nausea treatment and make sure that fido will be okay.  

Severity Basically, if your dog has anything more severe than the general symptoms listed above you may want to consider going to the vet. This could include seizures or being totally unresponsive. In most cases vets can simply treat the symptoms, but ultimately, it just takes time for the THC to clear their system. I’ve heard in some instances, vets can administer something that helps dogs to recover quicker (lipid injection) but I haven’t looked into it. 

What About Raw Marijuana?

If your dog consumes raw weed, it is unlikely that anything will happen other than possible digestive upset and it will likely come out undigested in their poop. The effects of THC can only be obtained through a chemical reaction caused by heat. The minimum temperature needed to cause this reaction is 150°F which cannot be accomplished in you or your dog’s GI tract.  

Solution 

Be responsible with where you store your edibles is the obvious answer. You wouldn’t leave a gun where a child could reach it. Just because marijuana is becoming more and more legal now, doesn’t mean you should be more careless with where you store it.

I know in some instances you may not be in control. Maybe you’re on a walk or at a friend’s house and your dog finds a tasty treat. At that point you’ll just want to address the situation, and take care of your dog accordingly to decide whether or not they need a vet. Most likely they’ll just need bed rest for the next 12-24 hours. 

First Hand Stories 

Stoner Pup:

An acquaintance of mine left her Matipoo with a friend. When she came to get him, he’d been home alone and was found lying on the floor shaking and not wanting to open his eyes. There was no sign that he’d gotten into anything, but fearing it could have been poison, she rushed him to the vet. While at the vet the dog started to become more aware of his surroundings. The vet looked him over and was fairly certain that he was just high and needed to rest. Once back home, he continued to improve and slept it off the rest of the day. He was pretty much back to normal by that evening.  

Blazed Shitzu: 

Again, this involved a small dog (Shitzu), the owner came home to find her dog laid out on the floor seizing. He couldn’t walk or sit up, he was vomiting, and over the course of the entire event he had about 5 seizures. With the seizures and not knowing exactly what he’d gotten into, the dog was rushed to the vet. Once the dog was deemed stable he was sent home, but it took him about a week to recover. The owner suspected the dog could have gotten a hold of a long forgotten medical grade cookie that was 10X’s stronger than your average edible. 

High Husky:

In this instance there was a Husky that, along with being laid out on the couch out of it, she also oddly went into hypothermia. This dog ate anything and everything so with the exact reason being unknown she was rush to the vet. The vet determined that it was most likely marijuana, and after she stabilized, the husky was sent home. The suspicion was that the dog got a hold of dab papers. 

Poop Edibles: 

My husband and I went camping with a few other people and our 3 dogs. When your camping, there’s not always a restroom present and the woods becomes your toilet. I caught my husband’s heeler (Dun) digging up and eating where somebody had done their business, toilet paper and all. After scolding Dun for being disgusting, we continued on with our evening, not giving it another thought.   

About an hour later we noticed Dun laying down with a glazed look in eyes which were also blood shot. His head bobbed back and forth as if the world was spinning, and he had a hard time standing up without wobbling and losing his balance.  

We had later discovered the owner of the bowel movement had also been smoking marijuana that day. After looking into it, it looked like it was very possible that THC could be passed through the excrement. It was the only logical explanation for such a rapid reaction in the dog’s behavior.  

We set Dun up with a bed and he slept until he recovered on his own which was in a little over a 24-hour period. At best he puked once during his spiritual journey.  

Sources: 

https://mashable.com/article/dog-ate-marijuana-edible-overdose/# 

https://www.alternet.org/2014/01/can-marijuana-kill-your-dog/ 

*Photos of marijuana plant & buds, cookies, brownies, gummies from Pixabay*