What everyday items are potentially toxic to my pet?

It’s no secret that dogs will eat just about anything within snout distance! It’s proven useful many a time no doubt if you’ve dropped some chicken from your sandwich, but not so much when your doggo finds your secret chocolate stash!

So many household items which you may never have perceived as toxic to your pet can in fact be incredibly dangerous. It’s so important to be aware of these potential threats and have them out of the reach of any animals when they’re unsupervised.

If you find yourself in a situation where you believe your pet has consumed something that is potentially toxic to them, call your vet or emergency clinic immediately.

The vet will need you to answer some questions to help them understand the severity of the situation and how to treat them, such as, your animals age and weight, pre-existing health issues, what they ate and how long ago. Unless, advised to by a medical professional, do not induce vomiting in your pet as this could actually end up causing more issues!

As always, prevention is always better than cure. Take all of the necessary precautions to avoid this happening to your pet. In order to help you do this, we’ve provided some info below on household items to watch out for!

1. Over the counter medications & Human medications

It’s important to always check with your vet before giving a pet any new medication and never give your pet human medication! Their little bodies work differently and what may be helpful for you and I could be very dangerous to our four legged counterparts.

2. Food

We all love our pets and want to give them the best. Humanisation has become a powerful trend in the pet world where our pets are treated more and more like a human member of the family. Whilst this is fab in many respects, if you're known to give your pet lots of human food, think twice. Common ingredients like grapes, raisins, onions, and garlic are toxic to pets. If you have a dog, watch out for the sweetener xylitol found in sweets, chewing gum, cakes/buns and even toothpaste as this can lower their blood sugar and even cause the liver to fail. And, we hope this goes without saying, alcohol is always a no-go.

3. Veterinary Products

Whilst these are safe for your pet in their prescribed dose, make sure this dose is correct when given to your dog/cat. Many vets have reported that they have seen a rise in issues stemming from people misunderstanding or administering the incorrect doses mistakenly.

4. Household Garden Items

This category is self explanatory and includes most of the same items that you ensure are kept out of reach from children, e.g. bleach, paint, weedkiller.

5. Rodenticides

These are designed to look tasty and scrumptious to rats and mice, which is great of course if you do have a pest problem, however, not great if you have cats and dogs in the house who are liable to mistake them for a yummy treat! Likewise, insecticides also need to be kept out of reach of your pet.

6. Plants

They're pretty to look at, but many common flowers and plants are poisonous to cats and dogs, e.g. Daffodil bulbs, tulip bulbs, bluebells are all common plants but are all toxic to dogs! Cat owners, watch out for lilies in flower bouquets. They can cause kidney failure if ingested.

7. CHOCOLATE!

Chocolate gets its very own category here due to the surprisingly high number of times pet parents make this mistake each and every year! The level of toxicity to your pet will depend on the size of the animal as well as the type of chocolate, e.g. white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate. For example, for a 9-10kg dog, it would take 450g of milk chocolate, 250g of dark chocolate and only 40g of baking chocolate to cause the animal to have seizures.

If you think your pet has ingested something it shouldn’t, please be safe rather than sorry and contact your vet as soon as possible and remember to BE VIGILANT!