Keep Your Dog Safe During Winter Walks

Many folks are suffering through the pains of winter storms and doing their best to stay safe on and off the roads.  But have you every heard of the dangers of winter for your dogs?  There are some very important poisoning dangers for dog owners to be aware of that appear with the winter wonderland scenery.

With the increase of snow and ice comes the limited ability to exercise your dog, so many take to walking on the sidewalks and even streets.  The salts that are laid down on roads, sidewalks and driveways can be a huge health risk for dogs and even cats during this time of year.  When they walk on the salt it irritates the pads and causes them to lick their feet and ingest the salt.  This can cause a potentially fatal reaction to those chemicals.

So what can you do?  You can purchase dog booties to protect your dog’s feet from those possible chemical encounters or be certain to wash their feet when you come back into the house.  For your own home be sure to use pet safe deicers to keep your dogs safe as well as neighbors that may use your sidewalk.

A huge concern is anti-freeze ingestion.  Leaking cars or careless persons filling their radiators can leave deadly puddles where they park on streets and driveways that dogs and cats are drawn to.  They are drawn to the smell and taste of anti-freeze and will quickly clean up the whole puddle.  Ingesting anti-freeze can be fatal to dogs and cats if not treated quickly.  The signs of poisoning are vomiting, seizures, quickened breathing and abnormal sleepiness.

The best solution to this issue is to not allow your dog free range of areas such as unfenced front yards, where they can easily wonder off and come into contact with these spills.  Always be sure you keep your anti-freeze away and completely out of reach of your pets and clean up any spills and fix any leaks on your cars.

And while prevention is worth a pound of cure, if you even suspect that your dog might have consumed either road salt or anti-freeze, contact your Veterinarian immediately.