Rattie Mattie the Stoner Dog

Current Location: Rocky Point Oregon  53F and raining lightly.

We had a scare last night that I wouldn’t want to repeat any time soon.  Mo and I are still finalizing some of the fixes on the Painter Street house in Klamath Falls.  I am not all that great at doing stuff at the moment, so Mo has the thankless job of working day after day on trying to rebuild and repair a falling down fence in the back yard.  Well, not totally thankless.  I can’t thank her enough, not even close.  She has taken up so much of the slack on that house since my surgery last month that I’ll never be able to repay her. 

The Painter Street house is finally painted and looks great

Melody joined me yesterday to help with the inside of the house, once again doing a spit shine of the floors and bathroom so the house is completely ready for showing.  I sat around and directed mostly, while Melody mopped and swept and cleaned up all the junk that the contractors tracked inside while they were working on the outside.  They used the bathroom and kitchen and other spaces it seems.  I’ll be really glad when they are completely finished and not tracking around the house any more.

As we worked, little Mattie, the Rat Terrier (hence the Rattie Mattie name thought up by daughter Deanna) was being her wonderful self. She hung out in the house with us, and when we would go outside with her, she stayed in the yard, visiting Mo as she worked on the fence, and exploring all the corners of the small back yard. 

Mattie loved rooting around in the ivy in the back corner of the yard

She snuffed around a bit in deep ivy, but I didn’t think much of it because I didn’t see her actually eating anything.  By 4 in the afternoon I was tired, Melody had gone home, and Mo was still struggling with the fence.  Mattie and I laid down in the patio in the sun to rest.  She seemed really tired.  As I drove home around 6, she lolled in her bed in the car seat, rather than standing up to watch the passing scenery as she likes to do.

Once home, she showed no interest in her dinner and passed out in her little bed in the living room.  When I roused her to put her in my lap and her little head lolled and her eyes wouldn’t stay open, I knew something was very wrong.  Calling several vets, I received the same emergency phone number for after hours vet care, and the number kept routing me back to the same loop.  I finally located a 24 hour vet in Medford, and they said, come down now.

We loaded up Mattie and Mo drove about as fast as she has ever driven the miles over the mountain to Medford.  It took less than an hour, but that was just about the longest hour I have spent in a very long time.  Mattie kept going to sleep, and I guess I have watched enough TV to know that I had to keep her awake.  I jiggled her and shook her, opened and closed the window, did everything possible to keep her little head from lolling and her eyes from closing.

Once at the vet, the tech took one look at her and said, “Is there any chance she could get into medical marijuana?”  What???  Are you kidding me? Of course not!!  We were frantic, thinking that maybe she had found a dead mouse or something that had been poisoned.  Later a second technician came in and asked us the same question.  Really?  They were all fairly certain she had the classic symptoms of marijuana toxicity.

After a long time, thanks to an extremely busy night of emergencies, Mattie was drug tested and it came back positive for marijuana!  We scratched our heads, trying to figure it out.  I called Melody at midnight wondering if she had any idea if any of the neighbor kids smoked pot or not. Melody has been out of the house for a couple of months now, she and her family have nothing to do with pot, and she swore that she was sure the neighbors weren’t pot smokers either.

Mattie was given IV fluids to take care of her dehydration, and we were told we did the right thing to keep her awake.  Her heart rate would dip to 60 unless she was stimulated, and she could have dropped into a coma.  According to the vet, this is such a common occurrence that she sees dogs every single day in the clinic with marijuana toxicity.  Every. Single. Day.

We did a lot of head scratching, and finally realized that we have had contractors all around that house for a month now, and in addition, the fence has been open, and anyone could have strolled through the back yard.  Who knows if some kid threw an old roach down and Mattie found it.  According to the vet, pot is so cheap and easily obtained now that people don’t bother to keep the unsmoked ends and just toss them away.  It is getting to be a big problem in parks and public places where people and dogs play.  Geeze!

I didn't take photos of Mattie when everything was so scary so these are shots of our happy dog

When we rolled back into our driveway at 1:30 AM we were so grateful that the test for marijuana was positive, that Mattie would recover and sleep it off, and that we didn’t have to keep wondering what in the world she had gotten into.  She was OK.  But oh my, what a warning to those of us with dogs.  With pot becoming legal and used openly, this problem is something we need to be aware of all the time. 

Photo of Mattie on leash, although she does great off leash as well around our property

Mattie is fine today, if a bit less energetic than usual.  Her eyes are bright and she is enjoying hanging out with us wherever we are in the house.  Thank goodness.  I was amazed at how incredibly attached Mo and I have become in only a short month of sharing our lives with little Mattie.  Losing her this quickly wasn’t an option.