With permission from author

Dear Friends,

PLEASE CHECK YOUR YARDS!

I write to you with a very heavy heart, as we lost our beautiful pet on Friday night. She was 20 months old, and was planning to leave next week to stay with Robin C. 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 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 may have a problem… and I can tell you that by the time there are symptoms, it is too late to be corrected….

• Dilated, fixed pupils
• Depressed respirations and heart rate
• Sub-normal body temperature
• 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 Rutgers State University with Dr. James White, a mycologist. Between Dr White, poison control, and the Toxicology Lab at the University 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 as 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 3×3″ mushroom! He only has one other reported case with a dog – a Labrador retriever and the outcome was the same as Rory’s. Life
expectancy for an adult 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 her small size.

Characteristics of the mushroom:

• All white — white top, white stem
• White “gills” underneath” has a “crumbly” texture — fragile and may fall apart in your hands
• Has a flat, round cap that is 2-3 inches wide
• 2-4 inches tall immature and are still deadly
• Has a “ball” appearance to the cap
• Stem tapers to a fat base
• Will be found near oak trees or roots of an oak tree
• Cannot be eradicated 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.