Many medications can be toxic and even lethal to your pets. Below is a list of common over the counter drugs that cause toxicity to cats. Other medications that should not be given to your cat as they can be potentially lethal, even in small doses, include:. Over the counter and prescription drugs It is advised not to give your cat any medications without first consulting your vet. The signs of aspirin toxicity in cats are dose-dependant and can include anorexia, vomiting, gastric haemorrhage, anaemia and hyperthermia.
Paracetamol : Cats are extremely sensitive to paracetamol toxicity. One regular strength tablet may be toxic to a cat, and a second ingested 24 hours later can be lethal. The signs of toxicity are brown gums, difficulty breathing, blood in the urine, jaundice and swelling. Ibuprofen : Cats are very sensitive to ibuprofen toxicity. The signs of ibuprofen toxicity in cats are vomiting, depression, anorexia and diarrhoea. Human topical pain medication containing the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug NSAID for example ibuprofen, Diclofenac and flurbiprofen.
People using these medications should take care when applying them in a household with pets. Even very small amounts can be dangerous. Cats can come in contact with creams by rubbing up against their humans, or by licking the area the cream was applied to. They could also come in contact if humans pet their cats after applying the cream to themselves. Other medications that should not be given to your cat as they can be potentially lethal, even in small doses, include: Antidepressants — can cause vomiting and lethargy with certain types leading to serotonin syndrome ADHD medications — act as a stimulant and dangerously elevate heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature Anti-cancer drugs Anti-diabetics — cause a major drop in blood sugar levels causing disorientation, lack of coordination and seizures Cold medicines — acts as a stimulant causing elevated heart rates, blood pressure, body temperature and seizures Vitamin D derivatives — cause life-threatening spikes in blood calcium levels in pets that can lead to kidney failure Diet pills Muscle relaxants — can impair the central nervous system and lead to death Household hazards Ant baits : These contain boric acid which is toxic to cats if eaten in a large amount.
Ant baits have a sweet smell and taste to attract ants. Deirdra Funcheon March 28, AM. Everybody has that neighbor OK, some of you are that neighbor whose heart bleeds for all the stray cats in the hood. Cat Lady or Cat Dude leaves paper bowls full of Meow Mix all over the sidewalks, and the scraggly, fiercely independent kitties go tomcatting all over town.
You might think your local Cat Lady is really sweet or maybe eccentric. But you know who really hates the Cat Lady? Bird lovers. Nationwide, a massive fight is under way between cat lovers and bird lovers who say wild cats are nonnatural predators threatening bird species and other critters.
The battle has become especially heated in Florida, where pending legislation could affect the way feral cat colonies are managed. This month, the issue caused problems at two recognizable publications after an Audubon writer wrote a shocking op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel.
Colonies of feral cats thrive all over the world -- under the 17th Street bridge in Fort Lauderdale or in stately Palm Beach -- and this creates problems for municipalities that must decide how to deal with them. It calls for cats to be captured, taken to a vet, implanted with a chip, neutered, then freed. Theoretically, this lets the current generation of wild cats roam free but ensures they can't produce heirs.
But the cat-loving crowd took a hit in January when a report was released , based on the work of scientists at the Smithsonian and the U. The report said that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1. Cat lovers decried this report as fear-mongering, anti-cat PR , but in Florida, the report could influence a piece of legislation that's kicking around Tallahassee. It would establish that community cat programs that practice TNR would not be guilty of abandonment or unlawful release.
Last week, it passed the agriculture committee in the House by a vote. A companion bill has been filed in the Senate. On March 14, an Audubon writer and accomplished environmental journalist named Ted Williams contributed a column in the Orlando Sentinel describing TNR as a "dangerous, cruel, and illegal practice.
Feral cats infect Florida panthers with feline leukemia, he wrote, and they kill migratory birds and endangered species including lower Keys marsh rabbits and silver rice rats. There's a winding path of other justifications and excuses. In December, a woman in Washington state poisoned her neighbors' cats boric acid because they kept getting too close to her car.
Last month also, a Kansas man pleaded guilty to killing kittens , living in a shop near his rental, with antifreeze because they were messy. In October, a Tampa, Florida man poisoned six cats - putting out bowls of antifreeze-laced milk - because he said they'd gotten into his strawberry plants. In case you're wondering, antifreeze contains the compound ethylene glycol , notable for its sweet taste and tendency to form razor-sharp crystals in the kidneys.
Police investigating the poisoning of seven cats near Worcester, England, said neighbors had been reportedly unhappy with the owner allowing her animals to get into rubbish bins. In the case of dogs, the usual justification is that they're noisy. They bark; they don't shut up.
When two Virginia dogs died after someone tossed antifreeze-laced cheese cubes into their yard, neighbors both expressed shock and commented on how noisy the dogs had been. It's the first answer I get when I ask friends and acquaintances why someone would do this - oh, well, you know, if the dog was really noisy So I also asked a couple of friends who write books for pet owners, full of affection for animals and ideas about how to care for them.
We hear about it all the time, and one added: I've often wondered about that. If I were you, I'd interview a psychiatrist. My guesses are that either they hate the neighbors, hate animals. I just don't know. Because for most of us, this just doesn't make sense, the idea that someone in the family next door is stirring poison into a lethal meal for your animals.
We can't imagine being the family in Colorado who settled in with their two dogs, "our children" they said, only to have them both killed by a neighbor, charged in December with feeding the animals strychnine-laced meatballs.
Strychnine , in case you wonder, is a poison that directly targets the nervous system, causing such violent convulsions that exhaustion is considered a contributing factor in death. So consider this headline: "Someone is poisoning dogs in Green Country neighborhood" from Tulsa, Oklahoma in December, the story telling of someone putting out strychnine-laced meat, poisoning ten dogs, killing seven.
Or this story from Lebanon, Pennsylvania in October of two dogs dead from meat mixed with rat poison: Absolutely, the sergeant said when asked if the act appeared deliberate. Someone placed it out there where they knew the dogs would be. This is the pattern that haunts me the most, the someone sneaking through the night, the person who kills in a kind of game. There are plenty of studies to show that animal abusers - your neighborhood pet poisoners, say - find it easy enough to turn their attention, their anger, their unhappiness to their human neighbors as well.
We might even ask ourselves whether tougher laws regarding animal abuse might end up protecting people better as well. A recent case in Houston, Texas, clearly involved harming animals - one dog poisoned, another shot, a horse slashed to death - to terrorize their human owners. If [the suspect] would do this to all these animals, we don't know what they would do to people , said the investigating officer.
But most pet poisoners, I think, stop before they cross that line. You'll remember that Myrtle Maly, who poisoned her neighbor's cats, blamed the neighbor for letting the animals outside.
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