Man Shocked to Find Dog Poisoned by Meth While on Walk

A growing number of dogs are turning up at veterinary clinics in California with methamphetamine poisoning.

Loki, a 10-year-old Alaskan Husky, fell ill after an ordinary walk with his owner David Espinal in San Jose, California, earlier this week. Espinal was terrified when they got home and his dog started pacing erratically.

"He just starts taking off and I have to run with him. We're just running back and forth on the street for a good 10 to 15 minutes," the owner told local station KNTV.

Espinal took Loki to the MedVet clinic in Silicon Valley, where veterinarians gave the pup a drug test and determined he had eaten meth during the walk.

Terra Schropp, the hospital director, told Newsweek these cases are becoming more common. Loki was the second dog to arrive at the clinic with meth poisoning in the span of just 48 hours.

"Our doctors were seeing a handful of cases a year and we're now seeing one to two a month," said Schropp.

Espinal told the clinic that Loki had rummaged through bushes near a homeless encampment, where he likely found the drug. That's part of a pattern the vets have observed. Historically, these cases were more often linked to meth in the possession of dog owners, but now most pets are coming across it in the street.

"The owners are reporting that they got into it on the walk, commonly it's near a homeless encampment, so I would just be aware of where you are walking," said Schropp. "Don't let your dog rummage through bushes. If you're at a dog park you can go off-leash, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend off-leash."

Communities across California are struggling with a homelessness crisis as housing prices have skyrocketed. Sacramento saw homelessness surge 67 percent over the past three years, according to a 2022 report from California State University, Sacramento. In the Bay Area, the unhoused population grew 22 percent in Alameda County and 35 percent in Contra Costa County since 2019, according to KNTV.

Drug abuse has exacerbated the crisis. In the 2019 San Francisco Homeless Count and Survey, alcohol or drug use was the second-most common factor self-reported to cause homelessness, with 18 percent of respondents saying it drove them to the streets. The No. 1 self-reported cause of homelessness was job loss at 26 percent.

Meth ingestion is life-threatening to dogs.

"Usually they will start to become hyper-excitable, some will become aggressive, they will start twitching, it can escalate to seizure activity," said Schropp. "Their temperature increases. All of those things can contribute to organ failure."

To treat the dogs, vets calm their nervous systems with sedation and use anticonvulsants for seizures. Loki has fully recovered after spending a night at the hospital.

Schropp advised owners to get their dogs checked if they notice any abnormal symptoms associated with meth poisoning. Most owners never guess their pet has eaten a drug.

"They're wondering what the heck is going on so it's scary for them," she said. "Most of the time it's a real surprise when we do the drug test and let them know what's going on."