Pet health tip, and warning:

[Robb]

Just in case anyone isn't aware, doggies and kitties are attracted to the taste and smell of ethylene glycol in antifreeze. Toxic dose is very small - a couple of tablespoons!

So don't let doggy drink out of puddles!

[Darth_Kitten]

1. Important Kick!!!!!

:thumbsup:

Thanks for the info, Robb. :)

[flamingyouth]

2. Timely & serious kick!

:kick: thank you!

[hlthe2b]

3. yes, and look at any parking lot-- how many cars are leaking

this stuff. And people who add it to their car's radiator in public parking lots-- spilling it as they go and think nothing of it....


Your dog, bounding out of the car for just a few seconds as you run into the grocery store can lap up enough for a tragic end...

Good reminder, Robb...

[Philostopher]

4. Another good one for this time of year,

Since the holidays are upon us:

Dogs love the smell of chocolate. With the holidays coming, many of us will be baking, and using baker's chocolate -- that's the stuff that's full of theobromine, which is an alkaloid that dogs' and cats' innards can't process. Their livers can't break it down into safe components like ours do, so it causes their hearts to speed up; because they can't process it, when they eat chocolate, it acts almost as a poison.

Milk chocolate, like Hershey bars, is bad but not as bad -- the cocoa isn't as concentrated. It takes more milk chocolate to cause problems, in other words, than the really concentrated stuff. Still, if your dog eats two or three Hershey bars it's worth being concerned about.

Another concern is that one of the gardening supply companies has started selling a mulch that contains theobromine (I think it uses the husks from the cocoa plant, left over after the chocolate is processed, which have a very high concentration of the stuff). The mulch has the name 'cocoa' in its name, and some people's dogs have eaten it and gotten ill from it, too.

It's somewhat less a concern for cats, because they don't taste sweets the same way dogs and humans do -- they don't need sugars in their diets, and only need a small amount of carbohydrates to stay healthy, so it's kind of an anomaly when they do eat chocolate, and especially strong-smelling, bitter baker's chocolate. Cats are more curious than dogs, though, and tend to wander about on the counters (unless you've figured out something to keep them off that I haven't!), so there's still some danger there.

An ounce of baker's chocolate can be deadly to a small dog; we all know a big dog could wolf down half a package in a few seconds. If you even think your dog or cat (or, I assume, ferret or hamster or rat) has consumed chocolate, take them to the vet.

[sleepyhead]

5. There is actually a nontoxic antifreeze

I forget the name of it, but it is made from a variant of ethylene glycol that is nontoxic to pets. Might be worth looking into if you have both a car and a pet!

[jmowreader]

6. It's not nontoxic, it's "low-toxic"

It contains propylene glycol, not ethylene glycol. Drink enough and you'll wish you were dead, but in small amounts it's edible.

They sell it in feed stores; apparently goats need a little bit of it in their diets. You can also get it in cigar stores, since we charge our humidors with it.

[Don_G]

7. Don't Change Formulations

It sounds like a good idea, but changing from the green stuff to the orange can destroy the seals in the engine. Just keep a garden hose handy to rinse off the anti-freeze when you change it to keep the critters safe.

[Lefta Dissenter]

8. OK, don't quote me on this

because I can't even remember where I read the story... it was in a horse magazine, but I don't know which one...

A horse drank a bunch of anti-freeze, and was very close to kicking the bucket, but the vet had the idea of giving the horse vodka (or other alcohol). Maybe a chemist is online here, who can explain about it, but it had to do with the chemical reaction between the anti-freeze and the booze, converting to sugars, or WHATEVER (I almost flunked chemistry class).

So, this WAS a horse who was almost dead, and they gave him a whole shit-load of booze, and he actually recovered quite nicely.

NOW, don't you DARE give your dog booze if he gets into the anti-freeze (and yes, it takes just a tiny bit of anti-freeze to kill a dog), but as you and your sick dog are racing into the emergency clinic, if you have your vet on the cell phone, at least ASK about this.