Answer: Most poisons are taken orally by the cat. Occasionally, a poisonous gas or vapour my be in haled such as carbon monoxide from a motor vehicle exhaust or a the solid fuel burning appliance, though not from natural gas. Also toxic are the vapours of organic solvent use in poorly ventilated areas and the smoke and the fumes from burning materials, especially plastic form. Vey rarely may a poison be absorbed through the skin.
The evidence for poisoning may be beyond dispute. You might actually see the cat consuming material which you know, or subsequently discover, is poisonous. Or there may strong circumstantial evidence if the cat develops signs of poisoning and could have access to a poison a toxic spray might have been used in the neighbourhood or a rat bait laid. It may be that the cat has been dosed with a drug or its coat treated with an insecticide, or drug used by member of the household may have been interfered with. Examination of the cat may show signs consistent with poisoning, such as the burning and blistering around the lips caused by a corrosive, a strange smell on the breath, a residue of material around the mouth and, especially, the dribbling of coloured saliva. Many rat and slug baits are coloured and this observation may actually help to identify the poison.
Corrosive poisons are usually ingested by cats as a result of washing these substances from their paws or coat. This type of poison kills by producing shock from the enormous of tissue damage and pain created. Corrosive poisons include such substance as acids, alkalis phenolic compounds and petroleum products (petrol (gasoline), paraffin (kerosene), diesel oil, and white spirit (paint thinners)).
Other types of poison damage the cat’s health, and may even cause death, because there interfere with some essential metabolic function. This type gradually produces one of four types of signs:
1 Digestive signs such as abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea.
2 Difficulty in breathing.
3 Nervous signs, which can very their intensity from staggering, excitement and muscular tremors to convulsion, paralysis, coma and apparent blindness.
4 Depression, including a loss of appetite.
This often follows the other signs and precedes death in the case of slow acting poisons. Some rat poisons produce other signs; warfarin, for example, causes internal haemorrhage and anaemia; thallium can produce hair loss, and alphachloralose has an anaesthetic effect and causes the animal to become very cold.
It should be emphasized that all these signs can be produce by conditions other then poisoning, and there are many instances of coat owners suspecting that there animal is being deliberately poisoned by someone bearing a grude when in fact the animal is suffering from a disease, often the early stage of some infectious condition. This should be borne in mind before requesting toxicological analyses; testing for any common poison is not cheap, and a blanket test foe all possible poisons would almost certainly be prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, the unavoidable delay involved on obtaining analytical test result means that they usually contribute little to treatment, though a positive finding may assist in treating, or preventing, the poisoning of the other animals.
