It’s important to contact your veterinarian if your dog has eaten a silica packet and displays any symptoms of distress, if the silica gel in question is colored (indicating that it’s not pure silicon dioxide and may contain toxins), or if the silica was packaged inside a potentially dangerous product such as medication.
#Silica gel packets dog ate skin#
These include things like vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, loss of appetite, excess panting, sunken or dry looking eyes, dry gums, and loss of skin elasticity. Watch out specifically for symptoms of dehydration and/or intestinal obstructions. However, it’s important to monitor your pet. Mild GI upset after consuming silica packets is not rare. But if they somehow gets more than one packet, the likelihood of negative symptoms increases. Generally a single, small silica packet won’t do any major damage to your dog. Again, the risk level increases if larger amounts of a foreign material are ingested. Ingesting the porous packets that contain the silica beads can cause choking, or a blockage of the intestinal tract. Believe It Or Not, It’s Not Usually The Silica Beads Themselves That Cause Problems. Large quantities of ingested foreign objects can also cause obstructions. In large amounts silica can lead to dehydration. It will heighten your pets exposure to potential toxins contained in the silica (moisture indicators), and potentially dangerous products the silica was packaged with. In addition, the more silica that was ingested the higher the chance you’ll run into complications. However, if it came into contact with a non-pet friendly item, such as medication, chemicals, toxic food items, etc, then that’s cause for more concern not because of the silica itself, but because the ingested silica may have contained trace amounts of the product it was packaged with. If it was something harmless, such as pillows, then you generally don’t have much to worry about. You also have to pay attention to what type of product the silica packet was inside. If the silica was mixed with a moisture indicator (typically cobalt (II) chloride or Methyl Violet), these ingredients can be problematic in large doses. However, that’s not to say silica packets are 100% harmless. Silica absorbs moisture but the beads do not expand in size. You can basically think of it as man made sand. Good news – silica itself is inert and non-toxic.
Each little bead can absorb about 30 percent of its weight in water, essentially helping to protect products from excess moisture and humidity. Silica is commonly used inside product packaging because of its ability to absorb moisture. However, it’s common for the silicon dioxide to be mixed with a moisture indicator that may make the silica appear to be blue, pink, green, or orange. Silicon dioxide in nature can be found in sand, glass, and quartz. Silica gel, in the form of little balls or beads inside silica packets, is silicon dioxide. What, Exactly, Is Inside Those Silica Packets? But there was no way for me to know for sure whether he had accidentally ingested any of the little silica balls or not. Knowing Fen, I was pretty sure his intentions were to destroy the packet and not to actually eat it. It would take less of a toxic substance to affect him than it would a much bigger dog. Your dog possibly eating something with a bold label stating “Do not eat” is pretty concerning. Oh no…what did Fen get into now!? Luckily silica packets are usually pretty clearly labeled, and Fen didn’t actually eat the packet, he just ripped it open. I found him down on the floor, picking tiny little balls up off the rug.
I heard my partner calling me from the other room. Fen didn’t have any trouble finding it, though. I didn’t notice that one of the silica packets had fallen down in between our couch and the computer desk. We had purchased some new pillows that were sealed up in plastic with silica packets inside the packaging. You know, those little packets that come inside things you buy that are clearly labeled “Do not eat”. He mostly just chews up, or otherwise destroys things.Įarlier this week, if you can’t already tell by my blog title, Fen’s latest victim was a silica gel packet. He doesn’t so much eat things he’s not supposed too, to be fair. You’d be wrong, at least when it comes to Fenrir.
What happens if dogs eat silica gel packets? Are they actually toxic to dogs? Now that my dogs are older, 12 and 5, you would think they’d be past the “eating things they’re not supposed too” stage.
0 kommentar(er)
