Young greyhounds unable to stand.

RE: Young greyhounds unable to stand.

Pat O'Brien — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 20:27:17 GMT

Just to close this out, it took about total of two weeks before the 2 dogs were able to stand again. They continued to eat. Hind legs were worse affected than fore. Seem back to normal now albeit with some muscle wastage (which is improving at this stage).

RE: Young greyhounds unable to stand.

Kate Richardson — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:19 GMT

Hypokalaemia can cause muscle weakness but I would expect it to be much lower than 2.8 if it was the cause.

Also, Hartmans won't correct it, it doesnt have enough potassium in, you need to supplement sodium chloride solution with potassium chloride

Might be worth rechecking K levels now as if still a bit low and supplementing orally if needed as it won't be helping but unlikely primary cause

Did you let the meat supplier know about suspected botulism from their meat?

Fingers crossed they recover

RE: Young greyhounds unable to stand.

Pat O'Brien — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 10:01:04 GMT

Update 8 days post ingestion. The 2 lesser affected animals appear back to normal but the 2 we had at the clinic are very slow. Eating ok but still unable to stand.

RE: Young greyhounds unable to stand.

Pat O'Brien — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 13:01:29 GMT

We did consider that alright but there was no progression or improvement. Phenobarb would be metabolised over a number of hours.
I did encounter that once where we euthanased a calf and a dog scavenged it next day. He got quite staggery, not quite comatose, and recovered over a few hours.

The dogs above are currently being nursed by owner, as they are still able to swallow. Eating ok for him. I expect / hope they will recover gradually. I will update here with progress.

RE: Young greyhounds unable to stand.

jamie winstone — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 19:34:03 GMT

Just wondering if the casualty slaughter could have had pentobarbitone in it which would take quite a lot of digesting in greyhounds.

Just a thought.

RE: Young greyhounds unable to stand.

Pat O'Brien — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 20:12:06 GMT

Yeah I guess it’s botulism alright with the history etc. I was just second guessing myself with the hypokalaemia.
Looks like we may have a bit of nursing ahead of us.

RE: Young greyhounds unable to stand.

Allison Gleadhill — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 19:30:47 GMT

Sounds like botulism. I saw 2 foxhounds years ago in the late 1980’s, in the days before feeding tubes. Did recover, can’t quite remember timescale but was within a week, support, turning , fluids, propping up etc just avoid aspiration

did see a bichon that had scavenged a sheep carcass last year & pretty sure it had botulism too. However that dog was in a worse state & I put her to sleep.