IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE

A garden can be a lethal playground for pets. DR ERICA STEPPAT shares what plants your furry friends shouldn’t sample and the steps to take if they do

Pets Plants that can be toxic to animals

There are many plants in the average backyard or inside your house that may be poisonous or toxic to your pet. Luckily for pet owners, many pets seem to have good instincts and leave these plants alone. However, not all animals display the same logic and intuition.

Most parts of all the plants listed in the table (right) are in some way dangerous to both cats and dogs. They are also likely to affect rabbits, guinea pigs and ferrets, although we rarely see these animals in the vet clinic. I have included many of the more common offenders, along with a few that you may not know about. However, there are many, many more, so always check a plant’s safety before purchasing it for your garden.

If you do think that your pet has eaten something he or she should not have, contact your vet or emergency centre as soon as ingestion is suspected, even if they have no visible symptoms. Vets have ways to make animals vomit, and the sooner we induce this vomiting, the less chance the toxicity will affect your pet. When you go to the vet clinic, take along a leaf or flower from the likely culprit. While we are not botanists, we have many books with pictures to help us identify the plant.

It is a familiar scene at the vet clinic to see a healthy-looking dog walk in, seemingly proud of their achievement of ingesting a plant that they shouldn’t have. To treat them, we give an injection and within 10 minutes, they are vomiting. We are able to reverse this with another injection, so by the time they go home, they just feel that they have had a very weird experience at the vet clinic.