Can a tarantula kill a dog if it were to bite it ?

SingaporeB

Arachnopeon
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Nov 25, 2013
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Wow, that’s very interesting! I wish I could see the full article to see the specifics... as someone who reads medical journals frequently, I’ve learned you have to verify the study past the abstact to ensure its validity.
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Tarantulas is a field that is wide open for scientific fraud. The people involved in the study of spiders are mostly the very lowest hanging fruit of the scientific community and there is no one looking over their shoulder. That's why you see the taxonomy of tarantulas changing so often and the changes are so radical.

Also, how was the venom of that tarantula confirmed to have entered the dogs, did the author of the study inject the dogs? I don't see a tarantula biting a dog, only the dog eating the tarantula (tarantulas are a food source too, no harm in eating one).
 

Nightshady

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_ˆ__THIS__ˆ_

Tarantulas is a field that is wide open for scientific fraud. The people involved in the study of spiders are mostly the very lowest hanging fruit of the scientific community and there is no one looking over their shoulder. That's why you see the taxonomy of tarantulas changing so often and the changes are so radical.

Also, how was the venom of that tarantula confirmed to have entered the dogs, did the author of the study inject the dogs? I don't see a tarantula biting a dog, only the dog eating the tarantula (tarantulas are a food source too, no harm in eating one).
I may buy the study to read the full version. My biggest question would be this weight and age of the dogs involved. If it was seven medium/large adult dogs versus puppies or 5lb Yorkies it would mean totally different things.

I found one other study in a veterinary journal from AU about 2 dogs being killed by tarantula bites, but both of the dogs were small puppies, so not too surprising.

Also, it’s a bit shocking that given the results of that study, someone didn’t do a full on LD50 study of tarantula venom and canines. As many people as there are that own dogs, and as many tarantulas as there are, you would think more research would be warranted given those findings.
 

SingaporeB

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I may buy the study to read the full version. My biggest question would be this weight and age of the dogs involved. If it was seven medium/large adult dogs versus puppies or 5lb Yorkies it would mean totally different things.

I found one other study in a veterinary journal from AU about 2 dogs being killed by tarantula bites, but both of the dogs were small puppies, so not too surprising.

Also, it’s a bit shocking that given the results of that study, someone didn’t do a full on LD50 study of tarantula venom and canines. As many people as there are that own dogs, and as many tarantulas as there are, you would think more research would be warranted given those findings.
Yeah, if there were anything to it Googling "Dog dies from tarantula bite" would bring up pages of results.

Third result I got was: "Most Dogs Tolerate Even Black Widow and Brown Recluse Bites"

Hmmmmmmm........

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dangerforceidle

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I'm not sure why you're comparing Latrodectus and Loxosceles venoms to that of a tarantula. Those two examples aren't even comparable to one another, with completely different mechanisms of action.

Also to you, @SingaporeB, I'm not sure why you feel the field of theraphosid biology is rife with fraud. You mention that your opinion is "low hanging" scientists would be the only ones studying spiders, and that there is no regulation for publications. I'm not sure what your interests are, but very few researchers enter a field that they are not passionate about. Why hurt the public image of something you love, just for webpage clicks or a publication in non peer-reviewed junk science magazines? There would also not be much money available for funding in a fringe research area such as this, speaking further to research being conducted by people who care about the subject. Your reasoning here doesn't make sense to me, and your cynicism is pretty extreme.

As part of the general discussion, we must also remember that venoms will affect various organisms differently. Some may be very resistant to the effects of the venom, while others may be very sensitive. Cats, for example, are highly susceptible to Latrodectus venom: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/172/3984/733. Dogs may be relatively unaffected, and bites to humans are "medically significant" but extremely unlikely to be fatal even with no treatment.

A non venom-related example of differing reactions to a substance between humans and dogs is chocolate. Delicious to us, deadly to them (possibly also delicious, since they seem very intent on eating it). Chocolate: so good it's to die for.

In other words, just because the effects of a venom on a human are not life threatening, doesn't mean it isn't much more dangerous to other species.
 

SingaporeB

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I'm not sure why you're comparing Latrodectus and Loxosceles venoms to that of a tarantula. Those two examples aren't even comparable to one another, with completely different mechanisms of action.

Also to you, @SingaporeB, I'm not sure why you feel the field of theraphosid biology is rife with fraud. You mention that your opinion is "low hanging" scientists would be the only ones studying spiders, and that there is no regulation for publications. I'm not sure what your interests are, but very few researchers enter a field that they are not passionate about. Why hurt the public image of something you love, just for webpage clicks or a publication in non peer-reviewed junk science magazines? There would also not be much money available for funding in a fringe research area such as this, speaking further to research being conducted by people who care about the subject. Your reasoning here doesn't make sense to me, and your cynicism is pretty extreme.

As part of the general discussion, we must also remember that venoms will affect various organisms differently. Some may be very resistant to the effects of the venom, while others may be very sensitive. Cats, for example, are highly susceptible to Latrodectus venom: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/172/3984/733. Dogs may be relatively unaffected, and bites to humans are "medically significant" but extremely unlikely to be fatal even with no treatment.

A non venom-related example of differing reactions to a substance between humans and dogs is chocolate. Delicious to us, deadly to them (possibly also delicious, since they seem very intent on eating it). Chocolate: so good it's to die for.

In other words, just because the effects of a venom on a human are not life threatening, doesn't mean it isn't much more dangerous to other species.
I've fed chocolate to a dog I owned previously, dark chocolate. He seemed to like the Dove chocolates as much as I did. He didn't even get sick or appear to be ill in any way. The dog was a Golden Retriever mix, weighed a little over a hundred pounds.

I've read that onions and garlic are bad for dogs too but I use both on pizza and pasta dishes and my dog - a Presa Canario - loves that kind of food and never appears sick from eating it.

Are you familiar with the term "Fake News"?

I'll tell you something that most definitely can be fatal, a bite from a mosquito. Have you ever been bitten by a mosquito? I've been bitten over a thousand times in my life by mosquitos but I've never been bitten by a spider.
 

Nightshady

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We had a dog eat a whole pan of brownies that it snatched off the counter. It didn’t get sick at all. At the time I looked up the toxic dose of chocolate for dogs. It was actually quite a lot, like 60-70gms per Kg. Our Doberman would have to eat like 7-8lbs of chocolate to be toxic. I don’t think it could eat that much haha.
 

dangerforceidle

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Those are both big dogs, and I would guess that the ingested quantity wasn't sufficient to cause them distress. It doesn't mean that chocolate is not harmful to dogs.

I agree with you on quite a few points throughout your post history, but the extreme way in which you present your point of view becomes an easy target. You are so absolute in your statements, that only a single counter-example weakens your position considerably.

I'm not saying every tarantula will be able to kill a dog. And yes, as you state, the chances of the dog killing/eating the tarantula without being bitten is high. However, there is evidence from veterinary observations that envenomations from certain Australian species/genera of tarantula may cause death in canines. A hypothesis is born, and more rigorous testing is required to confirm or debunk the assertion. Yet, the chances of a pet becoming envenomated is very low, and that alone probably makes this kind of testing unlikely. So what should we do with this information? Simply be cautious where dogs and Old World tarantulas are concerned, specifically the native Australian species. If you own both a dog and either Selenocosmia or Phlogius, take every precaution to keep them apart from one another.
 
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cold blood

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Chocolate is a common allergen to dogs...like most allergens, they don't effect all of them....its just warned against because its a more common allergen and those allergic, don't fare well.

My old Doberman loved onions, only later did I realize its also a common allergen. She obviously wasn't allergic.
 

dangerforceidle

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Note, in the case of chocolate, it is actually a poison rather than an allergen: http://www.merckvetmanual.com/toxicology/food-hazards/chocolate
Theobromine and caffeine competitively inhibit cellular adenosine receptors, resulting in CNS stimulation, diuresis, and tachycardia. Methylxanthines also increase intracellular calcium levels by increasing cellular calcium entry and inhibiting intracellular sequestration of calcium by the sarcoplasmic reticulum of striated muscle. The net effect is increased strength and contractility of skeletal and cardiac muscle. Methylxanthines may also compete for benzodiazepine receptors within the CNS and inhibit phosphodiesterase, resulting in increased cyclic AMP levels. Methylxanthines may also increase circulating levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine.
The details are not necessarily important to understand for this discussion, but the cause of symptoms is not an immune response as an allergic reaction would be.

This is all an aside from the main topic of tarantula toxicity and dogs, however. It was simply an example of how the same substance affects humans and dogs in a different way.
 

The Grym Reaper

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Theobromine is poisonous to humans and other animals as well, the thing is is that we'd have to ingest 20+lbs of chocolate for it to kill us, a couple of Smarties would probably be enough to kill a small bird.
 

Nightshady

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Theobromine is poisonous to humans and other animals as well, the thing is is that we'd have to ingest 20+lbs of chocolate for it to kill us, a couple of Smarties would probably be enough to kill a small bird.
Everything is toxic at high enough levels, even necessities like water and oxygen.
 

Garth Vader

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Chocolate is a common allergen to dogs...like most allergens, they don't effect all of them....its just warned against because its a more common allergen and those allergic, don't fare well.

My old Doberman loved onions, only later did I realize its also a common allergen. She obviously wasn't allergic.
My dog barfs repeatedly if he eats onion, tomatoes or potatoes. Yuck. So yeah they are all different.
 

Garth Vader

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Also- here is something I wonder about Ts and dogs. One of my dogs has pretty bad reactions to bug bites - she gets very swollen and itchy. And she weighs 85 pounds. So my assumption is that she could be allergic to Ts if she has that reaction to other insects although I know it's hard to say and I'm certain not going to test it.

Between the barfing dog and the sensitive to bugs dog, we can have a lot of drama.
 

boina

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_ˆ__THIS__ˆ_

Tarantulas is a field that is wide open for scientific fraud. The people involved in the study of spiders are mostly the very lowest hanging fruit of the scientific community and there is no one looking over their shoulder. That's why you see the taxonomy of tarantulas changing so often and the changes are so radical.

Also, how was the venom of that tarantula confirmed to have entered the dogs, did the author of the study inject the dogs? I don't see a tarantula biting a dog, only the dog eating the tarantula (tarantulas are a food source too, no harm in eating one).
So you don't like the results of a study and therefore you call it fraud? That's... interesting.
 

boina

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someone didn’t do a full on LD50 study of tarantula venom and canines.
Are you really advocating to kill a significant number of dogs (usually at least 20) and make others suffer horribly to conduct a LD50 study?? You'd have to conduct this study with different tarantula venoms, too. There is a reason LD50 studies are frowned upon, even in mice and rats. They are simply unethical. And what would the results mean anyway? You already know that any dog will suffer badly if bitten by a tarantula even if some people - for reasons I don't understand - insist on denying that tarantula venom can kill dogs.
 
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Nightshady

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Are you really advocating to kill a significant number of dogs (usually at least 20) and make others suffer horribly to conduct a LD50 study??
How does being surprised about something equate to advocating for it exactly?
 
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