Support Brandon’s Fight Against the Effects of Rat Poisoning

Hello, and thank you for visiting my GoFundMe page. I am a born and raised Floridian, and my canine friend Brandon and I have currently relocated back to Miami from Central Florida to be closer to family. I am currently looking for work and try to live a normal life with my buddy on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, on one of these days, my dog, nicknamed Sniffers, was out in our yard, and I noticed he was pretty interested in something in the bushes. I scooted him away from it and took a look and saw what looked like several small algae-type plants on several landscaping rocks that divided our property with the neighbors. This moss-like substance turned out to be rat poison that our neighbors placed on the wall dividing the two properties. With the recent two hurricanes we have had, apparently, the excess water dissolved the rat poison cubes, and the runoff got into my yard from under the fence and in its dissolved state hid within the foliage on the ground, appearing more like moss on rocks.

Rat poison is a very ugly product. It’s made specifically to attract the animal to it by making it sweet like candy and can take up to 5 days for the animal to start showing signs of its horrible effects. Please notice I say animal because once the choice is made to place this product outside, the poison is now available to all animals such as birds, squirrels, and in this case, my dog.

As stated before, these rat poison products are very ugly. In addition to simply tearing apart the animal’s digestive tract by causing very painful bloating, which if caught quickly enough can be managed (remember back where I noted it can take up to 5 days for visual symptoms to appear), it binds to the animal’s neurological system causing swelling of the brain, seizures, twitching, internal bleeding, which eventually can result in nosebleeds or worse, and eventually death. Why the product label would make it appear that the purchaser could place these products outside and it wouldn’t have any effect on the local ecology, I have no idea.

Because the product was in a watered-down residue form when Brandon licked it and at his weight, the doctor and I believe he may be able to survive this, but in the meantime, it’s a process of daily intravenous fluids to flush the system of the toxins, pain management, and constant monitoring. Our nights, which used to consist of him sleeping comfortably in his dog bed next to my bed, are now a wake-up call for me every hour or so to try to reposition him due to the pain caused by the gas in his system that he can’t expel. He is unable at this point to roll over or reposition himself, and we have daily morning trips to his vet to start the IV flushing process.

In Brandon’s case, he didn’t ingest enough of the poison to kill him. He is responsive to stimuli, and all tests they have taken come back with very good readings; however, he still has quite a fight as the little poison that is in his body is playing havoc on his digestive and nervous systems. Not enough to kill him, yet too much for him to fight off on his own.

At this time, I have used up every bit of money I had and have borrowed even more to cover the daily vet visits to get him past this, and I’m asking for help. Brandon is only 7 years old and has been nothing but a curious, faithful, and sometimes mischievous partner who can try my patience from time to time. He or any animal does not deserve to have to go through this simply because we feel rats shouldn’t wander through our neighborhoods. Please use traps, not poisons, when dealing with outside rodents.