There are a number of foods in the household that are poisonous to your pet.

Chocolate is the poison that people are most aware of. Chocolate is poisonous to your pet and can be fatal. Christmas and Easter are times when there is a lot of chocolate is in the house. Holiday times are also very busy times with a lot of people coming and going, so take an extra minute or two to make sure the chocolate is out of reach of your pet.

Grapes, raisins, garlic and onions are also all toxic for your pet. These can cause kidney failure and anaemia amongst other problems which can lead to death. If you are cooking in the kitchen with these ingredients it is safest to keep your pet out of the kitchen until the after dinner clean-up has been done. Christmas pudding and fruit cake all have high contents of raisins and the Christmas dinner may have garlic and onions. Take a few extra minutes at Christmas to make sure no leftovers are left within reach of your pet.

Macademia nuts are also poisonous to your pet so always be careful not to drop any in the house.

Xylitol, a sugar free sweetener, is found in sugar free products such as chewing gum and some peanut butters. This poison can cause your pets’ blood sugar level to dramatically fall and even result in death.

Lilies are highly toxic to cats. If you have cats in the house it is best to avoid having lilies in the house altogether.

Rat poison is poisonous to cats and dogs. If you have this in your garden shed make sure it is inside a sealed container and well out of reach.

Slug pellets are highly dangerous for your pet. Never put these down in a garden pets have access to and ensure they are stored in sealed containers.

Remember pets are not “mini humans”. It is not safe to give your pet some of your medicine at a lower dose. A lot of medications we take ourselves can be highly poisonous to our pets. Any medicines in the household should be kept in a sealed container out of reach of your pet.

Alcohol and tobacco are another 2 items that are in many households that are poisonous for out pets. Always keep cigarettes and alcoholic drinks off the floor and at a height out of reach of our inquisitive little friends.

Remember, we want to keep our home as safe as possible for our pets. This means doing a check of all rooms and sheds to check what we have in the house that could be dangerous to our four legged friends. Then we need to make sure these items are out of reach of your pets and kept in sealed containers. It may be best not to have certain items in the house at all such as lilies or slug pellets.

If there are young children in the house it is important to teach them the importance of not feeding pets. If your child is too young to understand this, the best course of action is to keep the pet out of the room your child is eating in.

Holiday time and family gatherings are when pets are most likely to get access to the foods that are very harmful to them. Take the time before the holiday season or the family event, to make a plan as to where your pet will be at this time and how you can make sure they can’t get anything that could make them very ill, or in a worst-case scenario, could cost them their life. Prevention is the best course of action and those few minutes spent planning could save your little friend’s life.

If your pet does get access to a poison in the house call your Veterinary Clinic for advice and have your pet seen to immediately.