- Bathing your dog or cat with a shampoo that contains soaps can strip away topical flea and tick prevention from your pet’s coat, leaving them unprotected from these parasites. Make sure the shampoo you choose says “soap-free” right on the label. If your shampoo does not specifically say that it is soap-free, it contains soaps and should not be used on your pet.
- Heartworms do not need to develop into adults to cause significant pulmonary damage in cats, and consequences can still be very serious when cats are infected by mosquitoes carrying heartworm larvae. Newly arriving worms and the subsequent death of most of these same worms can result in acute pulmonary inflammation response and lung injury. This initial phase is often misdiagnosed as asthma or allergic bronchitis but is actually part of a syndrome now known as Heartworm Associated Respiratory Disease (HARD). There is no treatment for Heartworms in cats. Therefore, prevention is extremely important for both indoor and outdoor cats.
- Giving your pet over-the-counter pain medications can be DEADLY to your pet. There is NO SAFE over-the-counter pain medication for your pet. Dogs and cats do not process these medications through their system the same way we do and giving your pet even one Tylenol can KILL them.
- String can be a very DANGEROUS toy for your cat. Cats will eat and swallow string. Cat’s intestines react in a very unique manner to this foreign object and will “bunch up” or “accordion” around the string, blocking off the intestines and in many cases causing death. Removing this foreign object from the cat’s intestines is an expensive and complicated surgery.
There are many hazards in and around the home.
- The ASPCA has compiled a list of things that could harm your pet. If you think your pet has been poisoned, please call the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center: 1-888-429-4435 (charges may apply).
- ASPCA Pet Health Insurance: 1-866-861-9092.
- You can also visit the ASPCA website at: http://www.aspca.org/