After owning—or being owned by—a Basset Hound for almost 8 years I have learned firsthand that some animals will eat just about anything that falls on the floor, even objects or food items that can cause them harm. Unfortunately when our companions ingest these foreign substances it can lead to costly emergency visits or worse yet an untimely death.
In fact, the nation’s largest and oldest pet insurer, Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. (VPI), receives hundreds of poisoning claims per month costing policyholders as much as $952 per incident.
If we only had access to information presented in an easy to read ranking format on what exactly causes the highest prevalence of pet poisoning, maybe then we can do more to prevent these catastrophes. Coincidentally we do.
VPI decided to analyze its quite substantive database of 485,000 insured pets and rank nearly 20,000 pet poison claims between 2005 and 2009. Without further ado here is the list of causes followed by the amount of claims filed:
Accidental Ingestion of Medications (pet or human drugs) 5,131
Rodenticide (mouse & rat poison) 4,028
Methylxanthine Toxicity (chocolate, caffeine) 3,661
Plant Poisoning 2,808
Household Chemicals 1,669
Metaldehyde (snail, slug poison) 396
Insecticide 323
Heavy Metal Toxicity (lead, zinc) 288
Toad Poisoning 270
Antifreeze Poisoning 213
Walnut Poisoning 100
Alcohol Toxicity 75
Strychnine 28
Between 2005 and 2009 policyholders paid a total of $6.6 million in costs associated with treating their pets for poisoning and of course the intangible factors such as the worry and grief such occurrences cause is completely immeasurable.
"Not only can a poisoning incident be life-threatening for the pet, it's traumatic for the pet owner as well," said Dr. Carol McConnell, vice president and chief veterinary medical officer for VPI. "Depending on what substance the pet has ingested and the amount, the reaction can be sudden with the animal exhibiting alarming symptoms such as staggering, vomiting, drooling, seizures, and even loss of consciousness. We recommend that pet owners be aware of which items around their homes can be harmful to their pets – medications, insect poisons, chocolate, and certain nuts – and keep these items safely out of reach. Also, they shouldn't assume that their pets will ignore that bottle of bleach in the laundry room or the Philodendron plant by the window. Our data shows this just isn't so."
VPI advises that in addition to instituting preventative measures pet owners should also be prepared in case the unthinkable happens. They suggest keeping your pet’s regular veterinarian’s phone number in addition to an emergency vet’s number handy at all times.
For more information about pet poisoning prevention and poisoning first-aid please visit www.petpoisonhelpline.com.
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Photo Credit: Daelyn Fortney
