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Spring & Summer Safety for Dogs-

Lawn & Garden Hazards

Everyone loves lush green lawns and Spring is the right time to apply lawn treatments .... fertilizers for healthy lawns and products to kill weeds and control crab grass. Unfortunately, the same products that produce healthy lawns can sometimes cause health problems for pets. Contact with herbicides can cause vomiting, excess salivation, problems with the central nervous system, and even sudden death.

Spring Time Dangers to be careful of:

• Tree Sprays, Garden Dusts, and Foggers
  Spring is also the time to apply pesticides to gardens and trees. Chemical pesticides are applied as tree sprays, garden dusts, foggers, and in a variety of fruit and vegetable sprays. Keep pets away from the area under and around freshly sprayed trees for at least 24 hours. Keep them out of gardens and flower beds after applying pesticide sprays or dusts.

• Slug and Snail Killing Pellets
  Never scatter slug and snail killer pellets in gardens or flower beds if you have pets of if neighborhood pets have access to your yard. Dogs find the small blue poisonous slug pellets tasty. Use a commercial bait trap or pellet holder that´s out of reach to pets instead.

• Rodenticides
  Ingestion of mouse and rat poison is another danger. These poisons come in cardboard containers filled with poisonous pellets. Since dogs can obviously chew through the cardboard to get the tempting bait, their owners carefully place them in spots their dogs can't reach.When rodents invade their homes to stay warm in fall, people put the little boxes underneath kitchen drawers and behind shelves in garages and sheds. When things are moved for Spring clean-up, the dog is right there to grab the forgotten poisonous traps. Most people realize how dangerous pest control poisons are to pets, but there may be things they DON´T know that could save their dogs' lives. Rodent poisons may not cause vomiting or other typical symptoms of poisoning. They contain a compound that causes a life-threatening bleeding disorder.

• Cocoa Mulch
  The danger of poisoning from Theobromine, the ingredient in chocolate that is toxcic to dogs, does not end with the chocolate candy or the baking chocolate inside your home. Pet owners should never use cocoa bean mulch in their flower beds or as garden fertilizer. "Cocoa Mulch", made from cocoa bean shells, contains potentially toxic quantities of Theobromine. Even if your dog has absolutely no interest in other types of garden mulch, cocoa mulch smells like chocolate and that smell attracts dogs. Dogs have died from eating cocoa mulch.
  

• Chemicals in Pressure Treated Decks
  Don´t let your dog lie directly on a wood deck that has not been sealed. Most wood decks are built from lumber that´s been pressure treated and preserved with toxic chemicals. Sealants should be applied every 2 years. Since toxic chemicals from treated wood can leach into the soil, never let pets crawl underneath a deck to sleep or play.

• Stinging Insects
  Some dogs will try to catch bees and others might even swat at them. When a dog gets stung, its usually around the mouth, on the nose or on a front paw. Signs of a sting are - scratching it's head, rubbing it on the ground, bumps or a swelling around the head, face, mouth, tongue, or paws, excessive salivation, or finding a stinger. If you can see the stinger, carefully remove it with a tweezers, then apply a cold compress to the site. If possible, apply a paste made from a mixture of baking soda and water. Some dogs, like some humans, can be allergic to stings. If your dog has a severe reaction, get veterinary treatment immediately

Cold Weather Products

When the winter months hit, people tend to break out a whole slue of products designed to help them combat the cold weather. This includes salts, antifreeze, and other things of that nature. There is no doubt that having a safe environment would be rather difficult without salt for your sidewalks, and if you don't want your car engine to freeze antifreeze is a must-have, but did you know that both of these can cause serious internal damage to your best friend?

Antifreeze is the main culprit that gets dogs every year, and if you don't be careful you may have to deal with a tragedy along those lines this year. The bad thing about antifreeze is that dogs like the taste, so avoid a tragedy by getting pet-safe antifreeze alternatives or keeping it under lock and key, far away from where your pet will ever be able to get into it. Don't allow them to drink out of puddles or lick their paws after a walk either as it doesn't take much to get them sick.

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