A black Labrador had to be rescued from Britain’s highest mountain after becoming seriously ill after eating marijuana, her owner has said.
According to her owner Christina Blume, five-year-old Tokyo felt unwell and even fainted several hours later while hiking in Scotland’s Ben Nevis last Sunday.
“She was so happy, eating treats and drinking and acting very active as usual,” Blume, a professional dog trainer, told CNN on Monday. The two were traveling with Blume’s 17-year-old son Magnus and their two-year-old golden Labrador Blaze.
Then things took a dramatic turn as they approached the top of the mountain, which is 4,413 feet (1,345 meters) high.
“We were about an hour from the summit when we noticed that Tokyo’s hind legs were very weak,” Blume said.
“At first I thought it might have been a spine or a disc that had slipped out from the climb, but then she started losing consciousness. I stood on that mountain and thought, this is it, I’m going to lose her.”
Blume initially tried to carry Tokyo down, but at 24 kilograms (53 pounds) it proved too difficult, especially as they were drenched in torrential rain.
Eventually, one of the tourists suggested she call emergency services, which sent a mountain rescue team to help.
Luckily for Tokyo, volunteers from the Lochaber mountain rescue team were nearby, having just attended another emergency on the summit.
“They put her on a stretcher and I grabbed one side of her and we carried her down the mountain,” Blume said. From there she took Tokyo to the nearest veterinarian.
The veterinarian immediately determined that Tokyo’s symptoms were not caused by pain, but by neurotoxicity, Blume said.
“She had all the symptoms of cannabis use and she also had a blood test. What really gave it away was that when they took her temperature, she passed a little gas and it smelled completely like cannabis. It was almost like standing next to someone smoking weed,” she said from her home in Surrey, southeast England.
“It’s not funny, but it was a little funny,” she added.
Posting about the episode on Facebook over the weekend, Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team said they were called “to help a lost dog”.
Confirming that Tokyo has since made a “full recovery”, they added: “It is now suspected that Tokyo, usually a very healthy and active working dog, ingested something which left her critically unwell.”
Staff at Crown Vets in nearby Fort William hooked Tokyo up to an IV and gave her activated charcoal, which absorbs toxins. When Blume returned for her the next day, things were much better in Tokyo.
“She was wagging her tail very happily and was ready to go. And the next day you wouldn’t know it had happened to her,” she said.
The veterinarian told Blume, who had never heard of dogs using cannabis before, that Tokyo most likely ate an edible that fell along the road or human waste containing traces of cannabis.
Blume says she has since been inundated with messages from other animal lovers who say something similar happened to their dogs.
“I learned a lesson about how dogs scavenge,” she said. “I never paid too much attention to it…they love to sniff and forage. But I’ll definitely be a little more careful about what they stick their noses into in the future.”