Pick Your Poison

We know from personal experience that our corgis, Nabby and Rufus, will eat anything put in front of them, and that’s why we started muzzling them before heading out on our walks. It breaks our hearts to see them looking up at us like two sad, little Hannibal Lecters, but we know we’re keeping them safe from who-knows-what might be on the sidewalk.

We can’t keep Nabby and Rufus muzzled inside our home, though, and that’s why we have to be on the lookout for everyday household items that could potentially be poisonous for them. At VPI, we took a look at our database of more than 485,000 insured pets to find the sources behind the hundreds of poisoning claims we get every month.  Between 2005 and 2009, these were the top poisoning claims:

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

These claims really added up too! VPI policyholders spent more than $6.6 million between 2005 and 2009 treating their pets for poisoning.

What about you? What types of things have you done to poison-proof your home for your pet? Have you ever had to take your pet to the veterinarian because of poisoning scare?