Imagine this scenario, you are sitting down with your favorite indulgence, chocolate brownies and a cup of tea for a quick pick me up. Sitting at your feet are are Fluff ball your adored cat, and Woofer you faithful dog.
Although you know that the vet tells you not to feed your pets human food, you do occasionally cheat, and sneak them a well deserved snack. After all, who could deny those soulful eyes that follow every morsel of the brownie from your plate to your mouth.
Before you pick the walnuts out of your chocolate brownies and throw them to Woofer, read this. It might just change your mind, because walnuts and chocolate are toxic to both cats and dogs.
Danielle a Muddy Boot Dreams reader, has a blog called Probioticsmart.com, which is chock full of really useful information for both you and your favorite pets.
She has included a chart describing the 13 most common causes of pet poisonings supplied by a insurance company. High on the list is the well known chocolate, but did you know that walnuts are poisonous also, I had no idea. Or that onions, and garlic, and all related root veggies are also toxic to cats.
One of my most hated pet poisons is Methaldahyde. The common ingredient in slug bait, stuff that most gardeners use all the time. Woofer will be attracted to the grain base when you spread this poison around, and the birds that eat the dead slugs will also be killed. In my years at the nursery I made sure that each customer purchasing the Methaldahyde based poison knew that there are safe alternatives that don’t kill our beloved pets, and most of them choose to switch to the non methaldahyde one after learning about it’s dangers.
Winter is well on it’s way, so make sure to clean up any Anti-Freeze spills, and keep the leftovers in a safe place, well away from curious pets. The sweet taste is appealing to animals who will lick up the puddles, resulting in a slow and painful death.
If we love our pets, we will do what we can to make sure that we keep them safe for a long and healthy life.
And keep the brownies for yourself, you deserve them.
Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams
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Jen..
ReplyDeletewhat a wonderful and timely post!
I love my furry ones..
and have been known to cheat with chicken tidbits..
but as I do not eat chocolate myself, there is none in the house. When I decide to snack, they know they too will get a treat, from their treat jar!
warm sandy hugs!
Loui♥
Thanks for the info, had no idea about walnuts.x
ReplyDeleteHi, it is with sad heart I am going to have to delete your blog from my Follow list, but I want to explain why before I do, so you will understand. I *loved* reading your blog, but then you changed to a dark background. I have my monitor set for its lightest setting, but still your background is black and I can't see the black letters on it. I haven't been able to read it since you changed it, but I kept hoping something would change. I talked to my tech support person and it can't be set any lighter/brighter. I didn't want to hurt your feelings by just deleting without letting you know why. You have a lovely blog.
ReplyDeleteMy brother lost a dog to poisoning from chocolate. My daughter-in-law's dog ate an entire bottle of ibuprophen and never really recovered. We should be as careful of poisons with our pets as we are with our children.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder!
If anyone else is having problems reading the text on my blog please feel free to let me know. I did let Barbee know that I am going to try and lighten up the background on the weekend.
ReplyDeleteOn my monitor, and every monitor that I have seen my blog on, the background is visually OK, but if you are having problems please let me know.
Jen
Your background looks fine on my monitor..I have no problems reading the text.
ReplyDeleteGreat reminder about the chocolate. One that I was not aware of is Grapes and Raisins for dogs..it is why we no longer have grapes in the yard..Chance was snacking on them everyday. Luckily he did not get sick..but he could have. :(
Obviously grapes are no problem for bears, since my Sister has been woken up more then once in the middle of the night. The local Black Bear was snacking on the grapes outside their bedroom.
ReplyDeleteSee what we have to look forward to?
Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams
Thank you for posting this, Jen! I, like you, had no idea that walnuts were poisonous to pets. I also didn't know about onions and garlic. I'm going to have watch our little lunch-mouth Lucy more closely and make sure she isn't eating things she shouldn't.
ReplyDeleteThis is a comment that Cindy from Rosehaven Cottage left me regarding the problem with the dark background of my blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Jen,
I posted this as a comment but it hung up and I don't know if it went through...
About the background problem Barbee is having with viewing your blog... this is probably an issue with her web browser incorrectly reading your blog's color codes. This often happens with Explorer (particularly old versions of it). I would suggest that she switch to a more stable web browser such as Mozilla Firefox (free download) that is compatible with the current coding used in blogs and websites. MS Explorer is notorious for not following the rules and often doesn't give the full experience of a website/blog one is viewing.
Just wanted to let you know before you went through the headache of spending your weekend altering your blog.
Hugs,
Cindy
Thanks Cindy, I really appreciate your help, and I hope that this resolves the problem for anyone who is seeing too dark of a background.
Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams
Great advice, Jen. I knew about the nuts being poisonous to our pets.
ReplyDeleteBrenda
I've told my kids both to make sure chocolate is never left laying around for the dog to find. I also now keep our vegetable garden fenced off since she liked going in it to pull out carrots, which are fine it was the garlic and onions and grapes I was worried about her getting into.
ReplyDeleteA friend of ours almost lost their dog a couple of years ago after some friends dropped off some homemade fudge that the dog got into.
Oh! I think I'd better let Gary of Gary's garden know this. He has a wonderful photo of his dog waiting for walnuts to drop.
ReplyDeletehttp://garysgarden-gary.blogspot.com/2010/09/if-only-dogs-could-climb-trees.html
I’ve now used all the allotted space for photos on Pictures Just Pictures and have started a new blog so I can carry on. It’s called
Message in a Milk Bottle
http://messageinamilkbottle.blogspot.com/
I’ve given it a different look but its purpose is unchanged - a photo a day.
Lucy
Thanks for the info! When my dogs are begging for a treat, they baby carrot or green beans. Extra veggies keep them at a healthy weight and they think they've gotten something special. :0)
ReplyDeleteA good reminder for all. As we have kids and pets, we never use any chemicals - we've learnt to love the weeds and the slugs!
ReplyDeleteHi Jen,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads-up on the walnuts. I've been doing research for a post I am writing on other poison plants and I'll add this to the list. Another big one for this time of year are many of the bulbs that we all plant in fall. Here is a short list.
Crocus
Hyacinth
Cyclamen
Tulips
There are a bunch of others, some will just make an animal feel sick but some will kill......
Not the happiest subject but one that people need to be aware of.
Rees