One Veterinarian Had an Idea in 1978. It Has Now Saved 5 Million Animals

Before there was a hotline, there was a problem.

Animals were being poisoned constantly, by pesticides, by household products, by medications, by the extraordinary creativity with which pets find ways to ingest things they absolutely should not — and the veterinary profession had no centralized resource for handling it. Practitioners relied on instinct, textbooks, and whatever institutional knowledge they had accumulated through experience. Pet owners had nowhere to turn. And the field of veterinary toxicology was still finding its footing as a discipline.

Then came Dr. William Buck.

A pioneer in veterinary toxicology at Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Buck looked at that gap and decided to do something about it. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a moment when animal poison prevention was not yet a formal field and the idea of a dedicated toxicology resource for veterinary emergencies did not exist anywhere in the country, he began building one. He later moved to the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, and in 1978 he launched the first Animal Toxicology Hotline in the United States.

One phone number. One resource. One idea that the profession needed something better than guesswork when an animal's life was on the line.

It was the beginning of everything.

From Hotline to Institution

The Animal Toxicology Hotline that Dr. Buck built did not stay small for long. The need was simply too great. Nearly 70% of U.S. households own at least one pet, with the total pet population approaching 400 million animals. Every one of those animals is capable of getting into something dangerous, and every one of their owners needs somewhere to turn when it happens.

The ASPCA recognized what the hotline had become and acquired it in 1996, giving it the institutional infrastructure, the staffing, and the national reach that a resource of its importance deserved. The hotline became ASPCA Poison Control — still allied with the University of Illinois, still built on the foundation Dr. Buck laid, but now operating at a scale he could not have imagined when he picked up the phone for the first time in 1978.

Today ASPCA Poison Control handles approximately one call every 53 seconds. In 2025 alone, its staff helped more than 334,000 animals navigate toxic substance exposures involving pesticides, drugs, plants, household products, harmful foods, and everything else the animal kingdom manages to get into on a given Tuesday. By July of that same year, the center had handled its 5 millionth case — a small dog suspected of eating raisins, which is exactly the kind of deceptively ordinary emergency that the hotline was built to handle.

What It Takes to Answer That Many Calls

The scale of ASPCA Poison Control's operation today is worth understanding in concrete terms, because it reflects just how seriously the center takes the mission Dr. Buck started.

The staff numbers more than 200 veterinary professionals, including over 50 veterinarians — many of them board-certified in veterinary toxicology and general toxicology. It holds the largest number of board-certified veterinary toxicologists in the industry. Nearly 100 licensed veterinary technicians support those veterinarians, backed by veterinary assistants and operational staff who keep the center running around the clock, every single day of the year.

In 50 to 75% of cases, the experts at ASPCA Poison Control are able to determine that an animal can be safely managed at home when the exposure is not severe. In critical situations, they work directly with the pet's veterinarian to ensure the clinical team has everything it needs to treat effectively. That collaborative model — supporting practitioners rather than bypassing them — is central to how the center operates and how it has maintained the trust of the veterinary profession for nearly five decades.

The Field Has Changed. The Mission Has Not.

One of the most striking things about ASPCA Poison Control's history is how much the landscape of veterinary toxicology has shifted since Dr. Buck first picked up that phone, and how consistently the center has evolved to meet it.

The toxins of the 1950s and 1960s look almost unrecognizable today. Paints routinely contained lead. Roach baits and insecticides were formulated with ingredients that would never pass modern regulatory scrutiny. Treatments that were considered standard of care at the time — including egg whites to induce vomiting in cats, recommended in a 1956 ASPCA publication — would make a modern toxicologist wince.

"Egg whites are not, nor were they ever, appropriate," says Mindy Perez Meadows, senior vice president of ASPCA Poison Control. "But today, 70 years later, pet owners have ASPCA Poison Control as a resource, and we offer scientific and evidence-based guidance."

That shift from intuition to evidence is the through line of the center's entire history. Every case handled, every toxin characterized, every outcome documented has contributed to a body of knowledge that the center freely shares with the broader veterinary and scientific community. The top 10 toxins list compiled annually from case data has become one of the most widely referenced resources in veterinary practice. The research generated by half a century of real-world toxicology cases has advanced the field in ways that would have been impossible without the infrastructure Dr. Buck built.

The Legacy of One Good Idea

It is worth pausing on what Dr. William Buck actually did.

He looked at a profession that had no centralized resource for one of its most common and most urgent emergencies, and he built one. He did it at a time when the institutional support, the funding, and the professional infrastructure for such a thing were minimal. He did it because the animals needed it and the profession needed it and somebody had to go first.

The first Animal Toxicology Hotline answered calls in 1978. ASPCA Poison Control answered its 5 millionth case in 2025. Between those two moments is nearly five decades of veterinary professionals and pet owners getting the right answer at the right time, an animal going home instead of not going home, a family spared the particular grief of losing a pet to something that could have been prevented or treated if only someone had known what to do.

Dr. Buck knew what to do. He built the place that teaches everyone else.

ASPCA Poison Control is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at (888) 426-4435. A consultation fee may apply.