Hi Shelley, I'm not an expert but I do know a bit about animals so here's what I know. Tomato plants can be very toxic to dog however the amount ingested must be pretty high to get a severe reaction. Of course, there is always exceptions so perhaps your dog is severely allergic? The fruit is not toxic as far as I know, only the plant because it contains solanine, a glycoalkoloid. (Found in many plants in the Solanaceae family) Symptoms include: vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, weakness, and confusion.
Morning glory seeds are toxic but only in large quantities (even to people!) Symptoms are the same as above but include liver damage.. I hope this helps, and your pup gets to feeling better!

Alexis

Shelley,

I am glad your dog is going to be okay. That must have been really scary yesterday.

Her symptoms certainly do sound like she ingested something.

Tomato plants have been reported to be toxic to some dogs in some cases, so I went to the ASPCA website to their Toxic Plants/Dog list to see what they say about it. I've linked that portion of their page below.

With plant toxicity and animals, there is a lot we do not know and much of what is known about which plants are toxic to animals is known simply because a person has reported their animal's reaction so that others know such a thing has happened in the past. Obviously scientists are not going to use dogs as test animals and feed them stuff that might kill them just so they can develop a list of toxic plants. Hence, in this sort of circumstance, the lists have developed because of anecdotal reports.

I have a dog who likes to pick green tomatoes and play with them like they are tennis balls, but he is fenced out of the garden so he cannot do it often, and he doesn't eat them. If he goes into the garden with me, he just picks a tomato and carries it around and wants me to throw it like a ball for him. (I usually take away the green tomato and get a tennis ball for him.) He's never gotten sick from carrying a tomato around in his mouth. It could be your dog ate part of the plant and not just the fruit. A dog's reaction can vary, too, based on the size of the dog. A small to medium sized dog might be affected by a small amount of a plant whereas it might take a larger amount to affect a large dog like my tomato-loving Rottweiler-terrier mix (he weighs 115 lbs).

Tomatoes are in the nightshade family, which has many plants in it that have at least some plant portion that is toxic to some animals or perhaps even to people. There's a reason we eat the fruit of the tomato plant, but don't cook and eat the foliage and stems, for example. Or, with potatoes, we eat the tuber, but we don't eat the foliage or the green seed pods/fruit (which look like green tomatoes).

Also, sometimes we never know what affects an animal. It might be someone else on adjacent property had sprayed a toxic chemical that drifted into your yard.

I have no experience with dogs eating toxic bugs. The only dog we've had that liked to eat bugs only ate grasshoppers, and they apparently weren't toxic to him.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: ASPCA Toxic Plant List/Tomato Entry

Toads are toxic. Most animals will vomit them up because they are irritating but I knew a schnauzer who ate a toad and had to be on IV's and in the hospital near death for a while. I just read something on line the other day about a dog who habitually ate green tomatoes and was repeatedly sick until the owner figured it out. My animals have fresh water but if there is a flower pot saucer I have to be careful. Dirt/ fertilizer in the saucer could be a hazard but they don't seem picky. I do sheet composting. My household scraps in summer are tossed out in the garden somewhere maybe buried with dirt or mulch. In winter I had a trash can and was dumping stuff in there - no air holes - not turned. I thought it would rot down and be useful. My dog found a slimy rotten lump in there and ate it fast ran from me trying to get it. He was drooling, hyper, trembling later that day and cost me $308 at the emergency vet.

Thanks so much for the responses! I knew I could count on you guys :) It seems like, based on what I'm reading at those links, the tomatoes (either green ones or maybe the leaves sticking through the fence?) are a possibility but probably not likely. I think only one morning glory actually sprouted, so probably not enough of that plant to be harmful. My dog is a 24 lb. papillon mix. She does have a bad habit of eating things she shouldn't though. Before I had a secure fence around my garden she would pick the little baby watermelons and carry them around and chew on them. I think she thought they were balls also.

Helen, your comment about toads really caught my attention because last night the dogs were all barking at this huge toad in my garden and trying to get at it through the fence. I found him in there a long time ago and let him stay thinking he probably ate a lot of bugs (he's HUGE!) The dogs always bark and try to get him when he ventures over on that side of the garden where they can see him. I knew toads could make a dog drool but never dreamed it could get any worse than that! I don't know how she would have gotten hold of the toad since it was inside the chain link fence, but it does make me wonder, especially with the vomiting, etc. starting shortly after that. Does anyone know if there are cane toads in Oklahoma? I was just reading about those and they sound awful!

I'm also wondering now about my homemade composter made from a plastic trash can. I have it sitting out there in the back yard, and I put my scraps in it. It has holes drilled in it for air but to be honest I don't roll it around or otherwise aerate it like I should. With all the rain lately, I noticed there is some goo running out the bottom. I also noticed that the dogs had been digging in that area (which they do because the ground there is soft and sandy). I wonder if she could have come in contact with something that had washed out of the composter into the soil? Helen, are you thinking some kind of bacteria or fungus or something that was in that lump your dog ate, or that the plant scrap itself was toxic to dogs?

Neither one of these things has ever crossed my mind as being a hazard to my dogs! I need to put the composter inside the fenced garden area, and relocate the toad as well just in case. My backyard is starting to look like a minefield of potential dog dangers lol Thank you all for the responses and for opening my eyes to some hazards I was not aware of. If anybody else has ideas or experiences please do mention them.

No answers here, but I am so glad to hear your dog is going to be okay! That is so scary, and I'm sorry you both had to go through that.

Thank you, CatLady - I appreciate that! She seems to be doing better by the hour this evening so I am hopeful that the worst is behind us.

Some very good answers here and the same ones I would have given regarding the tomatoes and the toads/frogs. All it takes for some dogs is to lick a toad and they will get sick. My dog would. She would start foaming at the mouth and choking and get a lot of phlem built up and couldn't breath. I would just have to keep her throat cleared and it would pass in a few hours.

She also loved tomatoes and would go try and steal them off the vine if I wasn't looking. If she got one and it was red I would let her eat it, but if it was green I would take it away. But she also loved celery and chewing on my dirty socks too.......

One thing not mentioned is mushrooms. With all the rain we've been getting a lot of mushrooms popping up all over. My dog used to find some kind of mushroom that she would eat and get higher than a kite! She would act crazy! I know that a lot of them are poisonous, so that could be a possibility as well.

I'm glad your dog is doing better and hope it doesn't happen again.

Emma

I have no idea what the nasty lump that my dog found was. I know not to put meat or fat in there. The vet said the whole mixture could have fermented and produced something toxic. The real reason I rushed to the vet was that I was planting daffodil bulbs that day that I had forgotten I had and that should have been planted last fall. My dog stole bulbs before when I planted them but did not eat them. He likes to take things and run. They are deadly poison but not something animals like to eat. Now I am sure it was the compost because I know he ate that.

Helen, was that schnauzer you mentioned in Oklahoma? The reason I ask is, I talked to my vet this morning and he said when he was in Florida they had toads that were so poisonous that if a dog licked or mouthed one it would kill the dog within 30 minutes (yikes!) He said we didn't have any here.... but she could still be allergic to the standard toad venom I guess.

That schnauzer lived next door to my friend in Joplin MO. It was an ordinary toad no cane toads here. Most dogs are not the character Fritz was- bossy little terrier who did not back down from anything. He died from kidney failure at age 11. I have seen a cat very sick from trying to eat a toad but it spit it out. Fritz was stubborn enough to eat it. I think the kidney failure was just old age. I am not sure what the normal life span is for Schnauzers. Some pure bred dogs have health issues more so than mutts. edit The toad didn't kill Fritz - that incident happened earlier in his life. His owners have a new fat shiny black schnauzer Okie from Oklahoma. Okie gets spray cheese from a can when he uses the bathroom outside - very spoiled.

This post was edited by helenh on Mon, Aug 5, 13 at 12:55

Yikes! Thanks for the information - obviously the ordinary toads we have around here can be dangerous as well, at least to some dogs. I'm going to catch that big fat one in my garden and find him a new home far away, just in case he is the problem. And trim back all my tomatoes so the dogs can't reach anything through the fence. And move my compost inside the fenced garden area as well. Hopefully those things will be enough to prevent this from happening again...

I did look very carefully but didn't find any mushrooms... unless there were some and my dog ate them all. I'll keep my eyes open though. I did see some growing along a sidewalk in Edmond last week - a very strange sight for around here, especially in late July!

I had to laugh about the cheese from the can. And I thought I spoiled my dogs! :)

Thanks everyone for all the helpful suggestions and sharing of experiences. I have learned a lot!

Shelley