It Costs Money to Call Animal Poison Control, but It Shouldn’t [OPINION]

My dog got into something he shouldn't have the other night and we called two different animal poison control numbers... both wanted a ridiculous amount of money.

As we were getting ready to turn in the other night, I found my dog, Dart, at the foot of laying with an open bottle of pills in front of him. I had accidentally left my bedroom door open and he jumped on top of my dresser, grabbed a pill bottle containing blood pressure medicine, brought it down to the floor, bit it open, and ate somewhere between 10 and 17 pills.

All of this was highly unusual behavior for the dog, but regardless of how strange it was -- it had happened and we needed to act fast. Our first instinct was to call animal poison control. My wife looked up two numbers, both of which cost money. I believe one was $59 and the other was $75. That sounded like a scam to me, so she called a local 24-hour vet. They confirmed that not only were the pay-to-talk numbers legit, but if we brought our dog in to see them they would also have to call one of those numbers and the cost of calling would be passed on to us anyway.

Luckily, we were able to find the information on what to do online and induced vomiting to get the pills out of my doggy boy's stomach. We monitored him for a few hours after and everything seemed to be fine so we went to bed.

The next day, Dart seemed to be his normal, happy, good boy self. The whole ordeal took place in 20-30 minutes and we acted fast so I think we got lucky this time, which I'm hoping our vet can confirm later this week.

I understand that all things have a cost associated with them, but I find it unbelievable that it costs that much just to talk to someone about a pet being poisoned. It seems so terrible to me that they would hold a loveable pet's well-being hostage like that. Like, they have the info that can save your dog, but will only sell it to you? That's some B.S. right there.

If Dart needed surgery I can understand costs being attached to that, but this is just information we're talking about here. If you're still reliant on monetizing information in 2019, especially life-saving information, it's time for a new business model. Profiting in this way seems disgusting to me.