Posts Tagged: Pet Safety

In honor of Disaster Preparedness Month in September, Leon Valley Veterinary Hospital wants to challenge our readers. How knowledgeable are you about disaster preparedness for pet owners? Are you ready if something were to happen?

No one wants to think that a catastrophic event will touch their lives or the lives of those they know and love. It’s important to have a safety plan in place before disaster hits. Preparedness makes safety possible in many cases.

We love our pets and want them to be happy and healthy. We provide them with good food, fresh water, and any pet medications they might need. Their toy bins are overflowing. Their beds are clean, soft, and almost as comfortable as our human beds. We snuggle and cuddle with our pets as often as we can. We know their every cue that tells us what they want next from us. But how much do we know about dangerous poisons that pets could access in our homes?

Most of us use a wide variety of chemical-based products in our home and on the lawn and garden. Unless you have switched to eco-friendly and pet safe products, these cleaners, pesticides, and other products can harm your pet if they come into contact with them.

Despite how noxious and unappealing they seem to us, hazardous household products can seem interesting (or even appetizing) to a curious pet.

Your friends at Leon Valley Veterinary Hospital is here to help keep your pet safe and protected from harmful chemicals. Here are a few ways to effectively store these pet toxins while not in use.

It’s that time of year again! Whether you’ve been stocking up on decorations since they hit the shelves or you’re just now figuring out costumes and trick-or-treating routes, there’s no doubt that the Halloween season is upon us. 

It’s only natural to want to include your furry friends in on the fun, but not all pets are as excited about lit jack-o-lanterns and tiny ghosts and goblins as we are. Not to mention, Halloween can be a scary and dangerous time of year for our animal companions.

Your team at Leon Valley Veterinary Hospital has come up with some safe, fun, and decidedly non-spooky ways to celebrate Halloween with pets!

Of the 250 snake species in the United States, only four of them are venomous. Unfortunately, all four species – the copperhead, coral, rattle, and cottonmouth – can be found here in Texas. 

Most of us are well-versed in the art of snake avoidance, but lots of pets aren’t always familiar with typical snake habitats. Indeed, many dogs and cats are drawn to the same spot that snakes seem to frequent. Fortunately, there are some great strategies to keep pets safe from snakes. 

We all know that February 14th is Valentine’s Day, but did you know it is also Pet Theft Awareness Day? It is estimated that 2 million pets are stolen each year. This unthinkable tragedy is also a call to awareness for loving pet owners.

Depending on breed, pets can be stolen for fighting, used for breeding, or for their high price tags. In many other cases, they are simply taken home as pets or given as gifts.

Many of these pets never find their rightful homes. Although you may think it’s unlikely as you supervise your pet, there are still many situations that may put a pet at risk. Pet theft can happen anywhere and at any time, and all it takes is a few seconds.

At Leon Valley Veterinary Hospital, we can’t even imagine this happening to our pets, so we want to offer you some tips for how to keep your pets safe, here.

For many of us, it’s trick-or-treat time, which likely means lots of fun and goodies for your family. But it can also mean dangers for your pets. While many pets do enjoy being included on Fright Night, be cautious about where and what you allow your pet to do on the scariest night of the year. Avoiding scares in your own home is key when it comes to Halloween pet safety, and Leon Valley Veterinary Hospital can help!

If you’ve never seen a dog being walked on a retractable leash you might very well be living in a cave or under a rock. These wildly popular leashes aren’t really leashes at all, rather they consist of a cord which is wrapped around a spring loaded device and contained inside a plastic handle. A button on the handle allows the walker to control the amount of leash that extends out, allowing a dog to walk as far or as close as their human chooses.

While this may sound like great fun and freedom for both dog and walker, retractable leashes pose significant risk to the health and safety of both the dog and human who uses it.

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Spring feels like the perfect time to throw caution to the wind and go a little hog wild, right? Sure, it’s exciting to have longer days and be able to use the extra time to plant and prune. But without a springtime primer on how to prevent a pet poisoning, seasonal safety can find itself on the backburner.

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