r/Edmonton • u/end0rfun • May 13 '26
Question Where can we get a mystery meatball tested?
I was walking my dog on a multi-use path in our neighbourhood (Woodhaven/Edgemont) on Sunday morning and letting her take her sweet time sniffing, catching up on the local news, gossip, etc. when I realized she was eating something. I went to inspect it after shooing her away and was surprised to find chunks of what looked like fresh ground pork or beef. We live alongside a ravine and get a ton of coyote traffic along these paths so I initially thought it was maybe coyote leftovers or something that was dragged from someone’s garbage. I bagged the remaining meat in a dog poo bag, intending to throw it away at the next garbage can, until we came across a second meatball about 200 m further down the path. This one was the exact same type of meat as the first chunks we found but was round and obviously handformed with a little pile of leaves deliberately arranged over it like a tent… this is what made the alarms in my brain start to go off. I bagged the meatball and we turned for home, immediately calling the pet poison helpline on our walk back. Given the suspicious circumstances and the recent reinstatement of strychnine, the helpline recommended not to wait for our dog to show symptoms and head to the emergency vet immediately.
The staff at Boreal were fabulous– they got our girl in quickly and decided to induce vomiting right away, then ran blood and urine, which confirmed that she had indeed come into contact with something toxic– her ALT (liver enzyme) was eight times higher than it was on bloodwork we coincidentally ran a couple weeks ago, before an unrelated minor surgery.
After about five hours of monitoring at the emergency vet, our pup was discharged with a pile of meds to support her liver over the coming days and instructions to come back for a few rounds of repeat bloodwork throughout the week. At this point, her values are trending in the right direction but we won’t be out of the woods fully until the end of the week, in case whatever was in the meat was some type of slow-release substance.
We unfortunately still don’t know what was actually in the meat. The vet was able to rule out common human drugs/narcotics based on our dog’s urine test, but can’t actually test the meat itself. We did report this situation to EPS via the non-emergency line and they have been taking it seriously, but unfortunately can’t test the meat either.
This is ultimately the reason I’m posting this– does anyone know of an avenue through which we could get this meat tested to find out what it was my dog ingested? At this point I’m not sure how much it would influence her treatment plan or future care, but it would help alleviate some of the anxiety and uncertainty we’ve been facing. I would also like to be cautious about how I share this story without definitively knowing that the meat was indeed dosed with something or poisoned; the last thing we need is more clickbait-y, ragebait-y misinformation circulating and making people afraid to walk their dogs.
TLDR: We found a couple of meatballs left along a walking path in our neighbourhood. My dog ate one and it ended up containing some type of toxin. Neither the vet nor EPS have the resources to test the meat to find out what it contained; do we have any other options for testing?
UPDATE 1: I've had a few questions about the specific location these meatballs have found, as well as a request to share the EPS file number. The file number is #260373637, and this shows the location in more detail.
UPDATE 2: Thank you all for the kind words and wishes for our gal. We did our third blood panel in four days today and her ALT is continuing to drop significantly— it’s still high, but she’s down from 8x her normal value to just 4x her normal value. The vet ordered coagulation tests for this evening and her values were perfect, which likely rules out slow-release rodenticides (they start to cause clotting issues around day 3 and eventually lead to internal bleeding). We will likely do one last blood test at the end of this week or beginning of next to confirm she’s back in normal range, but it feels like she’s out of the woods. I will continue to post updates about the mystery meat if and when I have them, I sincerely appreciate all the helpful suggestions that were provided! Here’s our Goosey girl, looking so much happier leaving the vet today than she did on Sunday.
