Zoe

On the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend, we found ourselves in a veterinary emergency room with Zoe, our 3-year-old labradoodle. All is well but the circumstances of our visit are worth sharing, so consider this a public service announcement. Here’s what happened:

Sunday, September 1, 2024, was a beautiful late summer day in the midst of a holiday weekend. We had no plans, so we had a relaxed day around the house. As is our practice, we took Zoe for several walks around the neighborhood, the last being in midafternoon. After that, a neighborhood dog-friend visited and the two of them raced around the yard, wrestling and playing.

After an easy meal, we all settled on our front porch as the sun began dipping below the tree line. The humans were lost in their books and Zoe sprawled on the cool cement floor for a nap. Thirty minutes later, I glanced up and noticed a puddle underneath Zoe. We got her up and it was clear that she had had an accident, something that hadn’t happened since she was a young puppy.

I led Zoe into the backyard so we could clean up her and the porch. Although Zoe was on her feet, she seemed out of it mentally. And as she moved slowly around the yard, the only way to describe her was unsteady on her feet.

If Zoe was human, our diagnosis would have been a stroke, so we called our normal veterinarian. We knew they would be closed at that hour but also knew they had an emergency call back option. We left a message and soon the phone rang.

“What’s going on with your dog?”

We described the symptoms.

“Do you have any marijuana in the house?”

“No”

“Do you have any teenagers in the house?”

“No”

“We have an emergency veterinary center in Woburn you can take her to. Let me get her details.”

We spent a few minutes on the phone answering her questions but then she interrupted to say that the computerized dashboard for the Woburn facility had shifted from green to red as we talked, which meant they had filled up with critical patients and, unless our case was a life and death matter, they likely would turn us away when we arrived. The person on the phone said we could try calling some other facilities. I asked for phone numbers.

“There’s one in Lawrence” and she gave me that number. “And there’s one in Westford.”

“Did you say Weston or Westford?”

“Westford.”

“Give me that number.”

So, we called Westford Veterinary Emergency Referral Center which is open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and is conveniently located (for us) at 11 Cornerstone Square in Westford.

I dialed the number and a human being at the facility picked up on the second ring. She asked me to describe the symptoms.

“Do you have any marijuana in the house?” she asked, then told us to come right in.

The drive on Route 495 was quick so we were there within 20 minutes. Zoe seemed better and had no further accidents. Normally she gets hyper excited in any new setting but as we walked into the vet center, she seemed uncharacteristically subdued.

We checked in and within minutes a veterinary technician came out and took Zoe into a treatment room. We waited about 30 minutes, fascinated by the steady stream of patients coming and leaving (although one aged dog who was rushed in with trouble breathing sadly did not leave with her distraught owners).

But Zoe would be leaving with us. They brought us into a publicly accessible treatment room. A few minutes later, the door swung open, and a much more vigorous Zoe dragged the veterinarian holding the leash into the room with us.

The Vet explained that when she first examined Zoe, the dog’s pupils were dilated. That and the symptoms we described led the Vet to conclude that Zoe had ingested marijuana. She explained that since marijuana had been legalized, the substance is present everywhere, not only in people’s homes, but also on sidewalks and front lawns, tossed there by passersby. Zoe, who from the first day she came to us, has acted like one of those big sidewalk vacuum cleaners sometime seen on downtown sidewalks, picking up countless pieces of debris despite our best efforts to keep her from doing it.

The Vet said that Zoe’s symptoms were consistent with the ingestion of the remnants of a joint or an edible, adding that this Westford facility alone treats on average three dogs per day for the results of marijuana ingestion.

The Vet did add that there were other possible causes but given Zoe’s youth, good health, and the quick resolution of her symptoms, no further treatment other than observation at home was recommended.

The next day and every day since, Zoe has been fine, so the medical crisis was short-lived. We do scrutinize our walking path more closely, but Zoe’s ability to sniff out contraband is better than our ability to see it, so she still zaps up random items from the sidewalk from time to time.

I’m sharing this story to alert dog owners of the risk that stray marijuana fragments present to their pets, to let them know of the excellent, around the clock emergency care for pets available in Westford, and to urge any recreational users reading this to take care when disposing of the residue of their product.