Tips to Help Clients Prevent Pet Poisonings

Preventing a majority of pet poisonings isn’t difficult, says Justine Lee, DVM, DACVECC, DABT, founder of VETgirl, but it requires that pet owners become aware of the simple mistakes they may unintentionally be making.

“Interestingly enough, if you look at the statistics from the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, 50% of the poisons that dogs and cats get into are human medications. So, drugs like prescription antidepressants, prescription amphetamines, cardiac medications, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. So my 3 tips to pet owners to help minimize the risk of pet poisoning is number 1, those weekly pill holders, that people put all their pills in—move those out of the kitchen don't put them on the counter. If your dog is going to counter surf, that can be really, really deadly.

Two, hang up your backpack, or hang up your purse or briefcase, because we have so many poisonous things in them. We have a little container of an NSAID, we have our cell phone with the battery in it, we have coins, we have xylitol gum. So, a lot of poisonous things in the backpack or the purse. The third thing is, if you have guests in the house making sure that they don't put all their pills into a ziploc bag and throw it in the suitcase. It's really easy for dogs and cats to chew into that. And the last thing is, if you own a Labrador make sure to teach them how to be crate trained. And, by just doing those 4 things you can help dramatically reduce the incidence of poisoning in our pets.”