MELBOURNE, Australia (CNN) -- A nine-week-old puppy has been saved by an unusual "hair of the dog" treatment. The American Staffordshire was put on a vodka drip, after being poisoned by anti-freeze.
A 9-week-old is now the picture of puppy health, but just two weeks ago, Cleo, a cute Christmas present, was hours away from fatal kidney failure after licking anti-freeze from a car part. The owner Stacy Zammit says, "She was giving us a bit of a scare because she was really disorientated, she couldn't stand straight, she'd fall over."
During the night, Cleo got worse, refusing food and constantly crying. Her panicked owner Stacy rushed her to a vet.
The only cure for coolant poisoning was another staff member's Christmas present: pure alcohol. Veterinarian Matt Pascall says, "There's toxins in that called etholyn-glycol and they're very, very harmful to the kidneys so what we need to do is give them alcohol and in this case, we gave her vodka to try and mop up some of those toxins."
The vodka was fed via a drip through her nose and into her stomach. Pascall says, "It was quite funny, to be honest. Flushing her with vodka to make her better!"
Over two days the boozy pup consumed more than a third of the bottle. Pascall says, "If we put it in human terms, for me it would be the equivalent of having 7 or 8 shots every four hours."
The Christmas vodka's since been replaced and Cleo's back to full health, now that the hangover's gone!