E321- Toxicologist Reveals What’s Killing Dogs- Dr. Renee Schmid

Tom Davis (0:00)

What is the most common thing dogs are getting poisoned with today?

Renee Schmid (0:04)

Yeah, so every year, we do a top 10 toxin list, and we pull what our top 10 calls that we receive. It doesn't mean they're the most toxic, it means the most common. And so that's...

Tom Davis (0:26)

Let's get started. Thank you so much for hopping on. Why don't you give an introduction to people who are listening and watching about who you are and what you do?

Renee Schmid (0:37)

I'm Dr. Renee Schmid.

Pet Poison Helpline. Pet Poison Helpline is a 24-7, 365-day-a-year animal poison center. And we are in our 23rd year of business, and our goal is to work with pet owners, pet parents, as well as veterinary professionals on helping to determine if an animal got into something that could be toxic to them. And then also helping the veterinary professionals, giving them step-by-step guidance on how to treat that particular exposure.

Tom Davis (1:18)

That's, yeah, that's a lot. So I know that you went to Kansas State, right, for college?

Renee Schmid (1:25)

I did, yes.

Tom Davis (1:26)

So where are you based out of now?

Renee Schmid (1:29)

Yeah, so we're based out of Bloomington, Minnesota, which is just one of the suburbs of the Twin Cities. So for anybody who's ever traveled to the Mall of America, I always use that as kind of the landvark, where we're not far from there at all.

Tom Davis (1:43)

Yeah, I think the only thing I know about Mall of America is, I think in Mighty Ducks at some point, there was like a roller coaster inside of a mall that was on there. So how did you transition from, I know that you're kind of a specialist now, right, and you have to do extra education for that.

What made you transfer into the toxic and the poison type of stuff from just normal veterinary care?

Renee Schmid (2:11)

Yeah, so the unexciting answer is, I really kind of fell into it. So I was looking for something different. I had been in general practice, I had been in emergency practice, I had been in a university setting before, and I was raising a family and just kind of looking for something different to do. I was a little bit kind of tired of the hands-on clinical practice, and just fell into, found that Pet Poison Helpline had an opening, and I looked at kind of the requirements, what the job entailed, and I thought, gosh, this is really something that could put all of my years of experiences together, and found that I had a love for toxicology that I didn't really realize.

We'd certainly in practice, I certainly dealt with poisoned animals, but it was, that wasn't the main thing. You had them here and there. And so I'd been a little bit familiar with the process, but then I found when I was able to get this job, 13 years ago, I thought, wow, this is actually, it ignited a spark that I didn't know I had.

Tom Davis (3:27)

Yeah, and I'm sure it's extremely rewarding. It's like a lot of the ER veterinarians that I speak with, where it's like high risk, high reward type of thing. I would assume, I don't know, that's why I'm super excited to have you on. And so when people call in, let's say their dog, God forbid, gets into something, and maybe it's urgent, maybe it's lethal, maybe it's not, maybe they're just sick, maybe they're lethargic, maybe they're vomiting.

Do they actually talk to you, or is there a triage kind of system that works like that?

Renee Schmid (4:00)

Yeah, that's a great question, because a lot of people don't necessarily understand the process. And when they call in, they are panicked. They're nervous, they're scared, they're afraid that maybe what their pet got into is, like you said, going to be fatal to them, and they don't know what to do. And so as a pet parent, pet owner, when you call in, you talk with one of our veterinary technicians. And so all of our staff are heavily trained in toxicology. And so our veterinary technicians talk with the pet owner, the pet parent, and gather all sorts of information about the exposure, because it isn't necessarily just about what it is they got into. It is how much, how the type of dog that it is, the timing that it was. There's a lot of different factors that come into play. And so they gather all of that information, and then they make that assessment. Yes, this is going to be a concern, or no, this is not going to be a concern.