WARNING--check your yard-may save lives crosspost

[critters]

Subject: Fw: Poisonous Mushrooms

PLEASE CHECK YOUR YARDS
With permission am crossposting for all to read~

I write to you with a very heavy heart as we lost our beautiful Rory
(Ch Rivermist Wrap'd In Rainbows) on Friday night. She was 20 months old,
and was planning to leave next week to stay with Robin Cameron to work on
her Canadian championship before a US specials career.

Thursday morning, I let Rory in the yard while I packed the van for a dog
show -- she was unattended in our yard for less than a 1/2 hour. We are VERY
careful about the yard and what is in it. I left at 9 AM and she was
bouncing around, happy and just fine. My husband came home from work that
evening to find Rory in shock in her crate.

She was taken to the emergency clinic and put in critical care. My
vet went with her and sat by her side through very nearly the entire
ordeal. Rory ate a mushroom in our yard. It was white with a red
inside and has been taken off to the lab in Michigan for analysis.
When I have a name for it, I will be sure to let you know.

When I tell you that EVERYTHING was done for her, please rest assured
that everything under the sun was done for this dog. This is my
profession, these are my friends... and they walked to the end of
the earth for Rory and it was not enough to save her. After 2 days
and nights of very intensive medical work-ups, Rory's heart stopped
beating and she could not be resuscitated. I never said good bye to
her and I never knew that leaving for that dog show without her was the last
time I would ever see her. She was the absolute joy in my life.

Watch your yards for mushrooms! They pop up overnight. Here's some symptoms
that you have a problem... and I can tell you that by the time there are
symptoms, it is too late to be corrected.... dialated, fixed pupils,
depressed respirations and heart rate, sub-normal body
temperature, and decreased blood glucose. If you see your dog eat a
mushroom - induce vomiting immediately. Use a tablespoon of hydrogen
peroxide and GET IT OUT OF YOUR DOG'S SYSTEM. It could save her life.

We are still entirely grief-stricken over the loss of our Rory.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share this with you. I
can only imagine how long it will take to heal our hearts.

Update:

Just spent the day at the Plant Pathology lab at Rutger's State Univ
with Dr James White, a mycologist. Between Dr White, poison control, and the
Toxicology Lab at the Univ of Pennsylvania, we have all the information we
can get about Rory's death.

The name of the mushroom she ate is called "DESTROYING ANGEL"
(amanita virosa). How befitting the name is this is what it did to our
lives. They thrive on roots of oak trees and therefore I need to tell
you that ANY white mushroom located near an oak tree is suspect to be a
variety of the very highly toxic Amanita variety of mushrooms. Dr White
informed me that this mushroom kills adults - a 3x3" mushroom!
He only has one other reported care with a dog - a lab ret and the
outcome was the same as Rory's. Life expectancy for an adult human is 3-4
days after consuming the mushroom. It is shorter in children or pets (in
Rory's case, 2 1/2 days) because of their small size.

characteristics:
mushroom is all white -- white top, white stem, white "gills"
underneath" has a "crumbly" texture -- fragile and may fall apart in
your hands mature mushrooms have a flat, round cap that is 2-3 inches wide
mushrooms is 2-4 inches tall immature -- still deadly - mushrooms have a
more "ball" appearance to the cap the stem tapers to a fat base will be
found near oak tree or roots of an oak tree cannot be irradicated with
commercial fungicides.

I have some hopes for this knowledge as well as aspirations for Rory.
I hope you will take this information, cross post it, and pass it on.
I hope that she has died so that others may live. Maybe the life she
has saved will even be my son, who is as apt to put something in his
mouth as any dog would be. I hope that you will all remember how
very special she was.

[critters]

while looking to get high, and nearly died, so finding them can be a good step toward destroying them.

[Bendy Kitty]

Mom takes Bast on walks (kitty on a leash!) and she has noticed shrooms around the yard. We have two huge oak trees out front. Mom will squish the shrooms before taking Bast out. She used to take cute little me out for walks but taking care of Legume & the foster kittens has taken up my walk time! hmpf

Bendy ponders for a moment, well Mom would be upset if Bastie got sick and died....but me?

Mom says she will make double sure there aren't any shrooms growing in the cat pen.

Bendy kitten