This coming week is the 50th Anniversary of National Poison Prevention Week!

This coming week is the 50^th Anniversary of National Poison Prevention Week!

Since it is Poison Prevention Week, let’s look at our home and garden to see how we could improve the environment for our pets. It does not matter if you are a First Time Home Owner or a long time Home Owner, I would like to remind all home owners of the poisons that lurk in your home as well as in your garden.

As a Pet Friendly Realtor I try to keep up with all issues related to having a healthy environment for our four legged friends.  Ironically some items we forget and others we did not know. As I was doing my research for this post, I had one of those “Aha moments” as well as a few on the list that hit me as “I did not know that”. So hopefully if we can improve our environment around our pets, they will be safer and live a better quality of life.

I have a few important items I would like to list as bullet points to watch out for. This list was taken from the ASPCA’s Top 10 Pet Toxins of 2011. I am not going to list it all just a few, but I will include the link for your convenience if you would like to read further about them:

·         Human Prescription Medication: Cats and dogs are notorious for ingesting any dropped pills. So my advice even if it takes a few minutes search for that “dropped pill” since almost 25,000 calls to Veterinarians was due to this easily correctable problem.

·         Insecticides:  This category includes Lawn care Products. Read the Label and if it is poisonous for your pets do not buy it. There is animal friendly Lawn care Products on the market. I also want to emphasize this includes insecticides you put on your cats & dogs for preventive purposes. Again let me caution you if it says for dogs only or for cats only than use it on the correct species. Never use a product labeled for a dog on a cat!

·         People Food:   Chocolate is the number one people food that pets ingesting which can cause from vomiting to seizures and everything in between.

Here is the link so you can see the entire list:   http://email17.secureserver.net/webmail.php?login=1

I would like to mention one other area to be cautious of and that is Plants. Not only should you be concerned with indoor plants but with outdoor ones as well, especially if you have dogs and or cats that are allowed to go in your back yard. I am going to mention a few flowers and fruits some of which I was surprised to see on the list. Again I will give you a link for your convenience to see all the plants and fruits. Hard to believe, but I would rather be cautious than make that trip to the Vet’s Office in an emergency. So with that said:

Amaryllis, Apples, Apricots, Asian Lily, Bergamot Oranges, Bird of Paradise, Branching Ivy, Calla Lily, Carnation, Cherry, Daffodil and Easter Lily to name a few……

Here is the link so you can see all of them:  http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/plants/

If you have any reason to suspect that your pet has ingested something toxic, please contact your local veterinarian or call the Animal Poison Control Center’s 24 hour hotline at 888.426.4435

If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at  homes@endrebarath.com  or visit one of my websites at http://www.endrebarath.com   Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations.