All the Creatures

I bet that title conjured up all kinds of thoughts. Did I mean having plants around your house that attracted birds and butterflies? Or did I mean having address plaques for house that had puppies all over them? Well, I was referring to the later.

A neighbor of mine decorated all of our mail boxes (there are 5 of us grouped together) with a horsey theme, since we all have horses. Her house has copper horses adorning her driveway and she has a collection of Breyer horses that are in a glass case in her immaculate living room.

I never went with an all out animal theme for my home but I do admit that my horse’s pictures are framed and are hanging in the dinning room. Our living room currently has a mix of western and forest themes and hubby has made a request that our bedroom be redone from the current fern theme to the wild west with cowboys, cattle and horses.

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Do you ever suspect that your pet could have trouble seeing? I know that one year my dog tried to chase a firework on the ground and would see something that was not there for days after the occurrance. Even years later I have noticed that he will growl at me if he sees me at a greater distance than 150 feet. He just does not recognize me unless I am closer to him than that. I wonder if it was that incident with the firework years before or is it now age related.

Since we live on and maintain country property, we have a welder and welding supplies. These are kept and used in the shop area of the barn. When my husband welds, I make sure that all of the animals are out of the barn so that they cannot look at the arc. We both know the dangers of blindness due to welding and take precautions to protect our animals.

I do wish that people would be aware of eyesight dangers to pets and animals. It is very rare that animals with eyesight damage are treated unless they are a highly prized show animal or valuable breeding stock in a zoo. Most are undiagnosed.

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As pet owners, we have to be well aware of certain chemicals around our homes that could be toxic or fatal to our pets. I bet you assume that most cleaning products are dangerous to them and you would be right. For example, did you know that PineSol that pine scented cleaner will knock fleas out cold, but will not kill them? But cats often have ill effects after walking on a floor just cleaned with the stuff.

Speaking of cats, they are very sensitive to products used on dogs. Many flea products used on dogs will send a cat to the vet in a big hurry. The spot-on products such as frontline plus for dogs is highly toxic to cats. This makes it harder for households that have both dogs and cats to use spot-on products. Of course if the cat and dog never go near each other then it makes it easier.

What makes products such as frontline plus for dogs toxic to cats is the fact that cats groom themselves and ingest chemicals from their fur and off of their paws. So if a toxic product in on their skin or picked up by their paws, they are likely to ingest it. Dogs are less likely to do that but a word of caution here - dogs do lick their paws too and may ingest toxic chemicals into their systems.

For further reading on chemicals toxic to pets visit the ASPCA Poison Control page. There you can find many answers to general poison questions.

As a long term pet owner, I have experienced first hand what a pet that has been poisoned will act like. I had a dog that got into toxic chemicals and then run like crazy until her paws bled. She died just after we got her to the vets emergency office. There the vet confirmed that she had been poisoned by the chemicals.

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