Several dogs suspected of licking or swallowing stingers at beaches on Queensland's Sunshine Coast have required emergency treatment, prompting a warning to pet owners.
Peregian Beach resident Jan Bolton was walking her spoodle Lily on the beach last Wednesday when she noticed her dog swallowed a blue button stinger — a small, coin-sized creature related to jellyfish.
Mrs Bolton said Lily became "quite frantic".
"We took her home and she was vomiting violently and quite obviously in a lot of pain and shaking like a leaf and very distressed," she said.
Mrs Bolton rushed Lily to the vet where they treated the dog with anti-nausea medication.
"Lily was making this horrific howling, screaming noise when she was trying to retch, which even alarmed the vet [who] ended up giving her an antihistamine as well because she thought she might have been having an allergic reaction to it."
Cases leave vet puzzled
Divya Nemani, a veterinarian at the Animal Emergency Centre in Noosa, treated six dogs on Wednesday, including Lily.
"All of them came in with very, very similar clinical signs," she said.
"They'd been at the beach and then 15 minutes after being at the beach, they started vomiting and then profusely vomiting."
Other symptoms included lip-licking, fever and some with dark mucous.
Dr Nemani treated them with anti-nausea medication and hospitalised one dog overnight for monitoring.
The cases puzzled Dr Nemani and her colleagues who hadn't seen so many incidents in one night before.
"I'm just piecing it all together that this might be a commonality here with the increase of blue buttons that we've seen on the beach," Dr Nemani said.
"And that a few [dogs] had potentially either licked it or ingested it."
She said if dog owners noticed their pet had been stung, they should wipe the dog's mouth with a cloth and visit a vet if symptoms were serious.
Stinger expert advises caution
Marine biologist Lisa-ann Gershwin said blue buttons were "low" on the stinging scale.
"It's the most beautiful, exquisite blue, and each of the little fringes going out has these little dots along the edge," she said.
Dr Gershwin said blue buttons often arrived on the beach alongside blue bottle jellyfish.
"When the winds are just right it brings in these populations. Then we see them scattered all over the beach."
She hadn't heard of dogs being stung by blue buttons before but said she was "not surprised".
"They do have a little bit of a sting to them. We don't feel it very much but different species feel things in different ways."
Dr Gershwin said the message was to "keep your dog away" from any type of stinger.
Mrs Bolton said dog owners should take care on the beach.
"I won't be taking Lily down the beach ever again if I see them on the beach, to be perfectly honest," she said.
"The fact that it's happened to so many dogs, I would be very aware."
