Pet owner details harrowing way dog was poisoned at Aussie campsite: ‘On death’s door’

A young Aussie has shared the harrowing story of how her dog ended up being poisoned and requiring immediate medical attention after eating human faeces that contained marijuana.

Alice Bleathman, who lives in her decked-out van and travels around the country, went for a walk near her campsite on the Nullarbor, with her boyfriend and her dog Ziggy, who was roaming around not far from the pair. After returning from their morning walk, Ziggy laid down on the rug she had outside and began sleeping before they all left the campsite together and headed to the shops.

"Why is he so docile, that's really weird," Alice said she thought at the time, though figured he might just be tired.

Once at the supermarket when she noticed Ziggy was still sleepy, Alice realised something was very wrong. He would tense at her touch and would "stumble" as he moved. "We were trying to figure out what was wrong, he looked like he was on death's door," she said. "We got to the vet and it was closed [but] we called the emergency number."

Hearing Ziggy's symptoms, the vet rushed to the clinic and Ziggy was taken to the emergency room for testing immediately.

Marijuana poisoning appeared to be the cause

The vet, at one point during testing, asked Alice if she smoked marijuana because Ziggy's symptoms seemed similar to marijuana poisoning — though Alice and her partner said they do not.

"She came back out of the surgery room and was like, 'It looks like marijuana poisoning we've got to make him vomit'," Alice said.

After this, the vet — completely in shock — discovered that Ziggy was vomiting up human faeces. "He was vomiting up human faeces from somebody at the campsite, who had just gone to the bathroom in the bush. He had found it and eaten it, and then got poisoning from the faeces.

"You wouldn't read about it but it happened to my dog and he's just spent the past 24 hours in ICU, getting everything out of his system."

Alice and her partner have since picked up Ziggy from the vet, who has safely recovered from his poisoning.

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More common than some may think

While this may seem like a bizarre way to get poisoned, a surprising amount of people who watched Alice's videos of what happened said they knew of a dog who had gone through the same thing.

"This actually happened to a friend of mine’s dog in Newcastle NSW. Luckily he got to the vet quickly too and made a full recovery!" one said.

"Vet nurse here! I’ve seen a golden retriever who did the same thing, took a few days but he pulled through," a second shared.

"My friend's dog had the same thing happen to her," a third revealed.

A fourth commented on how most people don't "think about how substances can be in your bodily fluids". "It's something to be really careful of," they said.

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