Plant Toxins Every Pet Owner Should Know About

We have recently seen a couple of animals poisoned by relatively common plants, so thought it would be a good time to teach pet owners about some common plant toxins.

Lilies are extremely toxic to cats, and my recommendation is that if you have a cat you shouldn’t have lilies in the house or the garden.

A cat was brought in to us a week ago when the owner found it eating leaves from a lily.

The exact poison in lilies isn’t clear, but we know it causes severe, acute kidney failure. Tiny amounts can be poisonous, with some cases of toxicity even occurring when a cat brushes past a lily then ingests the pollen when grooming itself.

We also had to treat a dog that had eaten Zamia palm nuts over the Easter long weekend. Zamia nuts are very dangerous to dogs, with very few dogs surviving Zamia nut poisoning. Sago palm is also in the same family, so the nuts of these plants are also very toxic.

Zamia palm nuts contain several different toxins. The first sign of Zamia toxicity is severe vomiting and gut pain. This can last several days and is very difficult to control. Around 1-3 days after eating the nuts most dogs experience massive liver damage, which is often fatal. Dogs that survive this can then experience other complications such as heart or kidney failure. On average around 2/3 of dogs that eat these nuts will not survive.

For both of these toxins, early treatment is essential. Fortunately both the cases we saw here have survived with some very intensive treatment. If you see an animal eating either of these plants, please don’t wait to see what happens as by the time they show signs it is often too late to help them.