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Keep Your Pet Safe in Summer

ASSOCIATED HUMANE SOCIETIES/POPCORN PARK REMINDS
PET OWNERS TO CELEBRATE THE SUMMER SAFELY
June 10, 2009

BACKYARD BARBECUES, NOISY PARADES, LOTS OF LOUD MUSIC AND,
OF COURSE, FIREWORKS. Those summertime rituals are all great fun
for people, but they are traumatic and dangerous to their pets.

More pets run away from home over the Fourth of July holiday than
any other. And with many towns holding fireworks displays throughout
the summer, summertime runaways are becoming more and more
commonplace.

“They’re beautiful for us to look at, but many people forget that their
dogs’ hearing is much more acute than theirs. Dogs don’t understand
the thunderous noise of fireworks and instinctively try to run away from
the sound,” said Roseann Trezza, Executive Director, Associated Humane Societies/Popcorn Park. “So, as soon as they have a chance – maybe a
fence to jump, or an open door to run out of – a fearful dog will run fast.”

Many dogs experience similar phobias during thunderstorms or when
loud music is being played. Your dog may show the following signs:
shaking, drooling, howling or barking, finding a place in the house to
hide, and loss of bladder or bowel control.

Associated Humane Societies offers the following tips to keep pets feeling
safe and secure when during fireworks or thunderstorms.

• Take your pet for a walk or play date before the fireworks start. This
allows your dog to exercise, release energy and, of course, go “potty”.

• Keep pets indoors. They may even feel safer if they are placed in a
smaller interior room.

• Close your windows. Dogs and cats, in particular, can try and get out
of the house by pushing through a screen. Also, closed windows will
deaden some of the noise.

• Make sure your pet has a license and an identification tag on its collar
or consider having a microchip identification inserted into your pet.

Summertime pet safety means more than just preparing your pets for
noise. Those lazy crazy days of summer for us are filled with a number
of hazards for pets.

• Keep Pets Away from Your Drinks. A cold beer or cooler may hit the
spot for you, but it is potentially lethal to your pets, who can become
intoxicated, weak and even comatose from drinking any alcoholic beverage.

• Skip the Sunscreen: Sunscreen and insect repellent not labeled
specifically for use on animals can be poisonous if the pet ingests it. Play
it safe and don’t use it on your pets.

• Matches, lighter fluid and citronella are outside staples that absolutely
need to stay out of the reach of your pets. All are poisonous to animals.

Keep citronella candles, insect coils and oil products out of reach. Ingestions
can produce stomach irritation and possibly even central nervous system
depression. If inhaled, the oils could cause aspiration pneumonia in animals.

A day at the beach for you is fun. A day at the beach for your dog is
potentially deadly. Sand is hot and uncomfortable. Salt water is dangerous
to drink and unless there is a cool shady area, the constant sunshine
makes pets susceptible to heat stroke.

Never, ever leave a pet alone in a vehicle. Even on an overcast, cooler
spring day, temperatures inside your car can reach 120 to 130 degrees
in less than a half-hour. Just a few minutes in those conditions can be
detrimental to your pet’s health and safety. Not only that, more and more
dogs are being stolen from unattended vehicles. Once again, just leave
them home.

Don’t leave your pet unattended outside, even in a fenced in yard. Fearful
pets, even those who are usually placid, often find ways to scale fences
or climb under them in an attempt to get away from something. It takes
just seconds for your dog to run away, or have its leash or collar tangled
on a fencepost, tree or other object.

Make sure screened windows are secure, especially those on upper levels.
Despite what many think, cats can be seriously injured or die from window
falls. You know that your window ledge is at a dangerously high level, but
your cat does not.

Make a new friend or a family addition. There are hundreds of dogs and
cats waiting for adoption at the Associated Humane Societies’ three animal
care centers in Forked River, Tinton Falls and Newark. To learn more or to
find ways to help the many animals being cared for through AHS log on to www.ahscares.org

Posted on SHARE Yahoo group - June 10, 2009