Are You Poisoning Your Pets?

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If you are like most pet owners, your pets are very special to you. It’s important to you to take the best care of them that you can. If you have not already done so, removing all of the grocery store brand cleaning and personal care products from your home is probably the easiest thing you can do to prolong the good health of your pets. Animals are more sensitive to toxic chemical vapors than we are because they are much lower to the ground where toxic vapors accumulate.

An extensive 20-year study revealed the long-term effects of exposure to toxic chemicals in cleaning and personal care products. It was discovered that daily exposure to toxic cleaning products could have harmful effects to the respiratory system. It makes sense that if cleaning products can have harmful effects to us, it stands to reason that they would also be harmful to pets who are closer to the floor. For more information about this study see A Healthy Home Means a Healthy You chapter in The Melaleuca Wellness Guide.

WebMD lists one of the top ten poisons for dogs and cats as household products “like bleach which can poison people, and is a leading cause of pet poisoning.” They go on to list rodenticides, insecticides, and lawn and garden products as four of the other top ten products that can lead to poisoning pets.

So what can replace these products so that you, your family, and your pets are safe from toxins that are found in most household products?

Let’s start with pet bedding and blankets. As suggested in The Melaleuca Wellness Guide washing should be done “every 2–4 weeks in MelaPower Laundry Detergent and MelaBrite.” Also “wipe the area where the bed is normally located with a diluted solution of Tough & Tender.”

Carpet shampoos and fresheners can irritate the sensitive membranes of your pet’s nasal passages, besides leaving traces on their paws, which they may lick off. According to the ASPCA these can cause skin irritation or gastrointestinal upset. Instead use Sol-U-Mel mixed with water and sprayed on the carpet. It not only deodorizes the carpet but can be used to clean as well. See Carpet Cleaner Machine Mix, Carpet Deodorization, and Carpet Spots in the Healthy Home Solutions section of The Melaleuca Wellness Guide.

“Exposure to insecticides may be toxic to dogs,” states PetMD, but living with fleas and ticks isn’t an option either. In a research entitled Poisons on Pets doctors Wallinga and Greer stated that “the products used to kill fleas and ticks on pets not only poison the insects but also poison pets and the people who handle them.” Melaleuca’s Original Shampoo used weekly not only keeps your dog’s coat fresh smelling but also keeps pests away safely.

To rid your yard of any kind of ants don’t resort to an insecticide. Consult the 16th edition of The Melaleuca Wellness Guide sections entitled Ant Killer on page 201, and for larger ant problems see the section entitled Fire Ants on page 211 for a toxic-free, tried and true method for ridding your yard of those nasty ant mounds.

Insecticides that are used on flowering plants can also harm pets. A 3% solution of Tough & Tender mixed with water in a spray bottle is very effective for killing aphids and stopping the onset of mildew on rose bushes and even vegetable plants without damaging the plants.

To rid your yard of bugs, mix 1 cup of Lemon Brite dish liquid soap and 1 cup of already mixed Breath-Away Mouthwash into a 20 gallon hose-end sprayer and soak your lawn, garden beds, and trees to the point that the fluid is running off. Bugs hate it! This will also remove dust, dirt and pollution from grass blades, making any lawn fertilizer work twice as well. Tough & Tender diluted and used in a lawn sprayer unit makes an excellent bug spray. Diluted Sol-U-Mel is very effective for crickets and crawling bugs.

For more information about the care of your pets and how to utilize Melaleuca products in their first aid, see the chapter entitled Healthy Dogs & Cats and Healthy Home Solutions in The Melaleuca Wellness Guide.

~ Richard M Barry