By Green Dog Pet Supply

Do you know what to do if your pet encounters something toxic, or is bitten by a spider, or eats something he shouldn’t? I’ve stumbled upon a great iphone app that could be very useful in an emergency, allowing you to act quickly to get information and even has a direct dial button where you can contact the Pet Poison Helpline immediately (like most or all poison control hotlines, there is a charge for the service, but that’s a small consideration when dealing with a life threatening emergency).

The app comes with a handy alphabetical list of potential toxins in your home environment with information about the types of symptoms you might see in your pet, which species are affected (did you know that avocado is extremely toxic to both birds and cows, while not much of a concern for dogs and cats?). Then there is a detailed description of what makes each item found on the list to be dangerous, including foods like raw bread dough and coffee grounds, human medications, toxic house and garden plants, spiders and snakes, and other household chemicals. I learned quite a bit from browsing through the list of poisons. For example, I knew that many Lily plants are very very toxic to cats and ingesting the smallest amount of the leaves or petals can cause them to have kidney failure, but I didn’t realize that interacting with the pollen or even drinking the water in a vase of lilies could cause the same problems. Makes sense, but I hadn’t thought about the water in the vase being a problem. You can even filter the list of toxins by species (ie: all of the things that are toxic to cats), or by type of toxin (ie: garage items, medications, or plants, etc).

No iphone? The Pet Poison Hotline website (http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/) is mobile device enabled for viewing with other smart phones, and of course the website itself has the same great info as the app. I feel better prepared having that information and the connection to the hotline at my fingertips.