Begin forwarded message:
From: Amy Walker <walke...@mail.med.upenn.edu>
Date: March 31, 2012 9:30:32 PM EDT
To: pf...@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
Cc: wpmfchurch <wpmfchu...@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [PFSNI] potenial botanical poisoning hazard on 1000 block
of St Bernard
Hi,
Yesterday morning I walked my rat terrier mix on the 1000 block of
St. Bernard near the community garden there. He grabbed something
off the ground that ended up being the seed pod of a Kentucky
Coffeetree. Blue guards 'food' he deems high value and he swallowed
one seed before I could get the thing away from him.
Being the good biologist I am, I pocketed the pod. And watched Blue
carefully. He threw up at dinner time and so to be safe I took him
to UPenn's Ryan Vet ER. They confirmed that he had a bit of gastric
distress but that he would be fine.
Turns out livestock get lots sicker from the leaves, pods etc of
these trees but dogs and humans can get pretty sick if they chow
down on too many- so just be aware. In fact, Ryan Vet saw a case of
this in 2005 where the dog got much more ill than Blue did.
Here is the USDA PDF for this tree.
http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_gydi.pdf
Just wanted to give a heads up,
Amy
