Pet Lovers!

I know that many of my readers and some of the bloggers I have listed on my blog list are animal lovers like myself. I have been trying to put away certain things to help me 'move on' after Jazmine's death. Today I found on the refrigerator this list I posted to always remind me of what to be careful of not letting her eat, just in case.

Now I made Jazz home cooked meals, but because we don't eat much, if any, processed stuff I would also share what we had for dinner with her at times, but some of these things just aren't good for doggies to eat and I thought I'd pass this info along so you can watch over your little ones. ( Jazz used to like to eat Guacamole with me, but certain avocados can be bad for dogs).

Most people are aware of the toxicity of chocolate for dogs, but some of these others things may come as a surprise to you. I remember the time we were renovating our kitchen, living room and dining room and turning it into one large 'Great room'. I had the contents of my cabinets in boxes and on the floor. Not thinking about it we went out for the day and when we returned home we found that Seven ( Jazzy's 'owner' - see previous posts) had gotten into that box of baking supplies and eaten a whole box of Bakers chocolate.

(That's Seven there, wasn't he a beautiful boy?)

I had my husband immediately call the Vets while I wrung my hands wondering how long ago he had eaten it and what would happen, praying it wasn't too late. The Vet was very knowledgeable and told us exactly what to do, it was great, we didn't even need to bring him in. All we had to do was to mix peroxide with some warm water (I forget the ratio, but it's easily found online but always consult your Vet first! ) and take that and a turkey baster and the dog outside and squirt it down his throat! The Vet warned to do it right the first time, because " You won't get a second chance'. Meaning the dog would bolt and you wouldn't be able to try it again.

Well, he didn't know my boy too well. I had spent many hours training both him and Jazmine and they were both very well behaved and obedient. So hubby took him outside, (I think we left Jazz in the house). I knew it was Seven because of his guilty look and Jazz wouldn't have done that, she was smarter and even though she liked chocolate (a lick or two from my ice cream bowl), she knew it wasn't good for her and she never got into any of it.

So, hubby loads up the turkey baster while Seven sits there patiently on the lawn, ready to take his 'medicine' for being bad. Open mouth, squirt mixture down throat, close mouth so he has to swallow and then we wait for the eruption. All went well except no 'eruption' ????

OK, so we call the Vet back, he says, try it again.
Seven is still patiently sitting on the lawn.
We mix up another batch, do same procedure. Nothing.

I think it took three times and then we had a Mt. Vesuvius eruption (it actually looked like very dark mudd). And he heaved his guts up for about 5 minutes. We felt so bad, a doggie is really sad to look at when vomiting, their sides heaving in and out. You would think this would have taught him a lesson but no, he got into some chocolate tasty cakes one day and we had to do it all over again. I think he actually liked the stuff!

We had a radio fenced in large yard. He would go and sit on the line and you could see his neck muscles jumping, I think he liked the Electric shock therapy! He would leave the yard to go visit the Jack Russells across the street, always being careful to look both ways before crossing and then come home, never ran away. With Jazz she wouldn't get within 15 feet of it, all you had to mention to her was 'remote' even when she didn't' have the collar on and she would get all sheepish and give me her famous 'snickle', as if to say I'm being good Mommy! (Some Dalmatians smile and she did all the time for various things). But she was obedient while Seven wasn't all the time but stayed in the yard mostly because he wanted to and for the most part he stayed out of trouble.

Here's the links to the list, there is also a page for cats too!

Link to Harmful things for a Dog

Here's the list I had on my refrigerator, it repeats some of the same things but there are other things you might not think about, like pennies. I had a Pug once that ate anything that she found on the floor and I mean anything! nails, bolts, dust bunnies, anything, of which I'm sure she found some coins lying around as we had her during our renovation and with two men in the house who liked to fix things you never knew what you would find on the floor. But she lived until 13 years old, so I guess it doesn't happen to all but it could.

Harmful things to your Kitty

Now that you know about what foods and other items to be aware of there is also something else that you should know that will effect all animals, and something we all need, water.

You give your pet water, and may not even think about it, you draw it from the tap and fill their bowl as much as needed during the day.
When we moved into the house we are living in now I came upon a new experience, we have well water but it is very hard. There is a thing called a water softener attached to the intake which draws it through a field of salt to 'purify' it before it comes out the tap. We had to use a PUR water filter at the other house because it was city water. We attached it here but I later found out that the salt gets through and for those with high blood pressure, they should not drink it. So I started to buy bottled water. Now that is mostly all I drink, I don't drink soda, just mainly water with an occasional cup of coffee or juice in the morning and sometimes a glass of milk. While I was being conscience of it's effect on me, it didn't occur to me that I was giving my precious Jazmine that awful tap water to drink and how it might affect her. Now I am not sure of high blood pressure problems in dogs but this is what I do know, salt filtered water can be very bad for your pets. I should have realized this, I used even filtered water for the steamer and it still had built up on it.

I found out too late.

You see, Jazmine's kidneys started to shut down. Her levels were very high. As soon as I found this out (only about a week before she died) I started reading online everything I could about this. I had always been careful of what I fed her but never thought about the water. I started to read about it and saw that it could cause all kinds of problems with the kidneys. I immediately started her on distilled water which the doctor said was good. At the time her prognosis wasn't that serious even though she was 12. But they did say that her back leg muscles were atrophying and we had noticed she would loose her balance once in a while, not a lot though. I thought it was because her appetite hadn't been that good and she might be a bit faint.

I tried all kinds of food to get her to eat but she would barely eat anything. They even gave us a special diet food for kidney disease and she only took two spoonfuls of the whole case we had to buy. On her last day she stopped eating anything, nothing would tempt her, she was still drinking a bit, but could barely stand up. We found out later she'd lost 5 pounds in that last week. It was so very pitiful and hard to watch and feel so helpless, especially since I am a very nurturing type and nobody ever leaves my house hungry, thirsty for anything! and they usually have goodie bags to take with them!

So this, as you can understand was very hard for me. I have been blaming myself so much these past weeks, and really kicking myself for it not occurring to me about the water and what that could be doing to her. So I know the agony it can cause. I know our precious pets don't last forever but we should do everything we can, since we are the humans and should know better, to keep them safe. That is why I am sharing this with you, even though it's very hard for me, and I've been crying all day about it, and dealing with the recriminations, I hope that with this post, even one beloved pet may be spared this, or given a bit longer to live and to give love and hope to their people.

70