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Hair; corn oil overdose? We are scratching our heads over that one. Is it a medication? Your care of animals has to be exemplary, those ages are quite amazing.

Just gave Samantha an extra scratching, she is on antibiotics from her teeth cleaning, "cheese time - Sammy" one gulp and pill gone, love it.

I hope she doesn't have the same reaction that my cat did.

Heh.... No the corn oil incident was not a medication, but a bit of mischief that got her in trouble.

I had a full gallon jug of Mazola corn oil in the barn, that I had to supplement the horses. In the summer months when everything is dry, adding a little corn oil to their feed helps moisturize their feet and coat and makes them shiny.

One day while I was at work, the dogs pulled the gallon jug off the shelf and broke into it. They could only reach it if they climbed on top of the dog house in the barn. I am sure Gidget did this part - Gidget was still a puppy, and was the only one that would have tried since she was into everything still.

Anyway, whoever chewed the cap off of it released the full gallon onto the concrete floor. The two big dogs probably sniffed at it and tasted it, decided it was gross, and walked away. I don't think they ingested much of it.

Zulu, I think, lapped up most of the gallon (she is a 20 pound dog!). When I got home from work, she was covered in oil and not feeling well. I gave her a bath because she was a mess and made the incorrect assessment that the oil would probably just give her the runs for awhile.

Then she started throwing up. In the process, she aspirated some of the oil into her lungs and now she was gurgling trying to breathe.

So I called the vet night service. When my vet called me back, she told me to meet her at the clinic, that not only would she now get pneumonia from the oil in her lungs, but that the huge quantity of that much fat (assuming she drank most of it) would likely kill her liver and kidneys.

They carcoaled her and made her throw up again anything that was left, and started IVs to super-hydrate her, and sent me home. The vet said she doubted Zulu would survive. She looked that bad. The first time I realized Zulu was actually old was when I looked at her chart. It said under type: Geriatric cocker mix! So I left, thinking she very well could die, but by morning she was still with us, and could go home.

For the next week, she still oozed oil out of every pore. I swear her eyes were even oily. I had to bathe her every day because she was oily to the touch! - and her poop was bright yellow for days. An early re-check showed her kidney and liver functions to be "pretty good for a 14 year old dog"... But I am gonna guess before that, she had the functions of a dog in her prime. But she was a pig, and ODed on corn oil.