Posts tagged "FleaAndTickControl"

April showers bring flowers for sniffing, long walks in the neighborhood and afternoon naps on the lawns. But before you let your pet leap into spring, make sure you're keeping your dogs and cats safe from these seasonal health hazards:

1. Watch Out for Poisonous Flowers
Tulip, hyacinth and daffodil bulbs can damage a dog's mouth and esophagus, causing drooling, vomiting, severe diarrhea or even abnormal heart rhythms, depending on the amount consumed. So be sure to keep bulbs out of reach before planting says Justine Lee, an emergency critical care veterinary specialist and Associate Director of Veterinary Services at the Minneapolis-based Pet Poison Helpline.

When planting, place the bulbs in deeply, surround them with plenty of mulch and then supervise your dog when it's outside to make sure it's not digging them up, Lee advises. Once the flowers are out and have bloomed, they generally don't pose a threat, as it's the bulb that's the most poisonous.

Also be very careful with lilies. Just a couple of leaves from certain lilies, like the day, Asiatic and Japanese varieties, can cause severe kidney failure in cats, according to Lee who said she dug up all the lilies in her yard in case her cat ever gets outside. "My own sister's cat died from it," Lee tells Paw Nation "Cats will always chew on plants. They're just curious and want to try something different. But one or two leaves will kill them."

2. Be Careful With Common Fertilizers
How you treat your yard is very important, as even organic supplements can be toxic to your pet.

Blood and bone meal are popular organic fertilizers, and dogs love the taste of these meat-based products. But ingesting blood meal can cause vomiting, diarrhea and severe pancreatic inflammation, while bone meal can create a cement-like ball in the dog's stomach, potentially forming an obstruction in the gastrointestinal tract and requiring surgery to remove.

Troubled by a huge spike in the number of dogs and cats that reported health-related incidents after being treated with "spot-on" pesticide-based flea and tick control products, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last year that it would be "intensifying" its evaluation of such products offered by various companies. This week, the EPA announced that it had concluded its study and published its findings in a report.

The verdict? Spot-on pesticide-based flea and tick control products are safe to use, concludes the EPA, but need better labeling so that the products are not misused by consumers. The products will also be subject to further testing. (It is called "spot-on" flea and tick treatment because they are applied directly onto the pet's skin, typically between the shoulder blades once a month.)

"Immediately, EPA will begin reviewing labels to determine which ones need stronger and clearer labeling statements," the agency stated on its Web site. "Next, EPA will develop more stringent testing and evaluation requirements for both existing and new products. EPA expects these steps will help prevent adverse reactions." ABC News reports that "one warning expected to be on new labels: keep cats away from dogs that have just been recently treated with a spot-on product. There is a worry the cat might lick the dog's fur."

Those adverse reactions among dogs and cats, acknowledges the EPA in its published report, include "vomiting, diarrhea, salivation, itching, hair loss, skin ulceration, lethargy, nervousness, ataxia, terrors, seizure," and in the most severe cases, death. (In 2008, there were 44,263 such reported incidents, compared to 28,895 incidents in 2007, reports the Associated Press, including 600 deaths.) "Most incidents were classified minor," states the EPA report, "but all products had deaths and major incidents."