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Originally Posted by Elktonjohn
Speaking of cats and dogs, there was an interesting thing on one of the science channels about a year ago which spoke about anti-freeze poisoning and pets. I spill anti-freeze from time to time, and have pets so payed attention but...and I hope someone who took advanced chemistry will chime in here...they noted that in animals, the same receptors which take up the ethylene glycol also take up ethanol (ethyl alcohol aka liquor) and that if your pet ingests anti-freeze, giving it liquor might help to bind the receptors thus giving you extra time to get your pet to the Vet. In reading the details of the nasty stuff that anti-freeze does it mentions that ethanol ingestion, either before or after...unsure, delays the onset of metabolism. I don't want to suggest that getting you dog blasted will cure it if it chugs Prestone...but it makes sense that it might buy you some time to save it's life. Of course, if it's a dog you hate...no comment. And I can see the jokes coming already...ok...but it's still a good question. Damn....
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"Receptors" is a little bit of a mis-statement...there's an enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, that breaks down alcohol. Ethanol (liquor alcohol) and Antifreeze differ only by the fact that there's an extra -OH group on the Antifreeze, so it's a "double alcohol" so to speak. When it's metabolized, it makes a lot of nasty byproducts that can tear through your cells and cell proteins.
Giving the animal some liquor means that ethanol, which fits "better" in the enzyme than ethylene glycol, will take up that enzyme for a longer period of time and keep the antifreeze from metabolizing into the deadly poisons.