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Pesticides to Avoid with Pets

Pesticides are wonderful to ensure your garden grows to full maturity. They do a great job of repelling the bugs and other creatures that would try to feed off of your precious produce. That said, some of those creatures are often your pets. Pesticides have a long list of negative side-effects that could change your pets’ life forever. The following are a few pesticides and other outside chemicals to stay away from if you’re harboring beloved cats and dogs.

Snail bait commonly uses metaldehyde to attract its prey, which incidentally also attracts mammals. The only problem is that it can cause blindness, seizures, and sudden death. It’s definitely a chemical you don’t want your pet to come across.

Organophosphate and carbamate insecticides are both found to contain inhibiters to cholinesterase. What that means for your pet is that these chemicals can induce excessive aggressive behavior out of your cats and yourself.

Mulch can come with horse manure. Many horses are fed a deworming pill, whose chemicals exit the horse’s body afterDog their work is done. If a pet were to internalize any of that mulch, they would be in danger of blindness and paralysis, among other things.

Other pesticides specifically toxic to dogs include: Avermectin B1, Allethrin, Bendiocarb, DCPA, Diazinon, Malathion, and Rotenone. Pesticides specifically toxic to cats and other pets are Warfarin, Difenacoum and Brodifacoum, Benomyl, and Methiocarb. Take note that each of these will have negative effects on all pets, just not necessarily as strong.

Dogs and cats love to explore the world around them with their noses. If you’re working in your garden, you can bet your pet will want to know what you’ve been up to. Any number of pesticides could be inhaled as they sniff around.

Dogs especially are prone to taste or nibble on the plants in a back yard. They would be at the most risk for poisoning as they would ingest more of it than a cat would. To avoid the dangers that come from pesticides, choose very carefully which ones you use, and if you do, keep your pets away from them.

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