911 hotline for pets

Would you know what to do if your dog or cat had a medical emergency? Many pet owners say they do not. If the right call is made, thousands of little lives a year can be saved. They sound like 911 calls, but they're not for people; they're for pets. Frantic owners calling an emergency pet hotline. Caller: "She ran, hit her head on the wall and then started seizuring..." Animal Poison Control Dispatcher: "... Again, he should be absolutely fine." One of the scariest things for a dog owner is to open the door of the apartment, walk in and there is a pill bottle on the floor. From swallowing pills to chomping on chocolate and snacking on poisonous plants, the list of bad things that can suddenly strike your pet is long. But what many pet parents don't know is just a phone call away. Animal Poison Control Dispatcher: "When did the cat start showing signs then?" These are the people who answer your calls. They're all vets working round the clock at the ASPCA Poison Control Center in Urbana, Ill. In the last year alone they handled more than 140,000 calls. Karen O'Neil was one of them. Her 3-year-old dog, Kodos, helped herself to an entire bowl of raisins and chocolate -- a toxic mix for dogs. "It was about six in the morning, it was on a Saturday, so there were no vets, nobody was open," O'Neil said. Making matters worse, O'Neil has two dogs and didn't know which one was the culprit. So she called the Poison Control Center. "They were able to tell us the right amount of raisins that would be problematic for the size dogs, the amount of chocolate that would be problematic," O'Neil said. Not only that, the vet on call that morning talked O'Neil through the unpleasant task of inducing vomiting in her dogs. "And help them through it and it was great because it gave us a lot of piece of mind," O'Neil said. "If a pet gets into something that may have been toxic, time is of the essence," said a Poison Control dispatcher. The center may be located in Illinois, but it's open 24 hours seven days a week to everyone across the country. And it's not just for poisoning emergencies. The center's veterinarians can explain how to handle everything from a bug bite to swallowing foreign objects and heatstroke, a big problem this time of year. This time of year when you're getting ready to put your winter clothes away moth balls are highly toxic. Poison Control has already managed 113 cases of mothball poisoning.If you think that your pet may have ingested a potentially poisonous substance, call (888) 426-4435. The initial call costs $60, but follow-up calls are free.For more information, including emergency numbers, please click here and here.

Credit Source: CBS 2 New York