Dangerous Plants You Should Not Have Inside or Outside Of Your Home If You Have Pets

Plants can be a beautiful way to spruce up your home and garden, but if you share your home with a dog or cat, you’ll want to choose your plants carefully. The leaves, seeds, berries and bulbs of some common plants can be poisonous to pets.

Many flowers, such as hyacinth, oleander and hydrangea, can cause stomach irritation when ingested by your cat or dog. Wisteria, lily of the valley, morning glory and narcissus are other common plants that have parts that could be poisonous such as seeds, pods, roots, bulbs and flowers, and therefore should be avoided when landscaping your yard.

Vegetable and fruit gardens should also be treated with caution. The leaves of rhubarb, shoots of potatoes and seeds of apples can be extremely poisonous to dogs and cats. Instead, try planting beets, honeydew melon or zucchini squash, none of which will pose a threat to your precious pets.

If you’d like to bring your garden inside, tuberous plants are great to include in any fresh-cut arrangement. While some members of the tuberous family are completely poisonous, such as iris and lilies, others can be safe when handled intelligently. As long as their bulbs are discarded, tulips, daffodils and buttercups are a beautiful and safe way to bring nature indoors.

In the spring, be sure not to plant azaleas, primroses or geraniums, which are entirely poisonous to dogs and cats. Consider planting impatiens, sunflowers or petunias instead, as they are all safe and will add color and beauty to your outdoor space.

Floral decorations are not solely relegated to springtime, however. The winter holidays are a popular time to celebrate with seasonal plants, so be mindful as you decorate. Cats and dogs should stay away from holly and mistletoe–both of which contain poisonous berries–and English ivy and poinsettia plants, whose leaves, flowers and stems are toxic.

Keep Rodents Out This Winter

When the temperature drops, people aren’t the only ones looking for ways to stay warm. Pests seek warmth indoors, too.

Protect your home from unwanted visitors this winter with these simple home preparedness tips from Terminix Pest Control.

Seal pests out and warmth in:

• Place weather stripping on the bottom of all exterior doors to ensure they seal tightly. Doors that do not have a tight seal can allow a variety of pests to enter the home and can allow warm air to escape.

• Use caulk to seal any holes or cracks in your home’s exterior. Large holes should be stuffed with steel wool or wire before sealing with caulk or other materials.

• Eliminate cracks or openings around pipes and utility lines that enter the home. These are potential problem areas that can allow pests in and heated air out.

• Close the flue damper when the fireplace isn’t in use. An open damper can allow a large amount of air out and can be an entry point for a variety of insects, rodents and wildlife.

• Ensure attic and foundation vents are equipped with tight-fitting 1/4-inch hardware cloth. This will help keep rodents at bay. Also install insect screening over windows, utility vents and other areas where small pests may slip through.

Check the exterior

• Move piles of firewood and other debris away from the home’s foundation. Both provide ample sources of shelter for rodents and other pests such as termites, and could encourage them to live near the home.

• Trim tree branches and shrubs away from the home. Rodents and other insects can scale rough surfaces like trees or large shrubs in order to access your home’s roof or other entry points in the home’s exterior.

Ask your exterminator for our Earth Care Clear The Air Odor Remover Bags.  They will rid the foul dead rodent odor from within your walls, without having to lift a finger.  You can also order our bags online.

Owls being used for natural pest control

Six plywood homes were built this month next to the futuristic, blue-roofed Marin County Civic Center as part of an innovative, and slightly desperate, attempt to persuade owls to police the building’s rampaging rat population.

The wily rodents have been wreaking havoc on government property at the San Rafael center. The buck-toothed vermin, it turns out, are a delicacy to barn owls, a family of which can gobble between 3,000 and 5,000 a year.

“Barn owls are most beneficial to man in controlling rodents, because they are cavity nesters and are easy to attract,” said Alex Godbe, program director and founder of the Hungry Owl Project, which built the owl domiciles in cooperation with the county. “They are superb hunters with large appetites. Also, the barn owl is nonterritorial, so you can attract as many owls to an area as there is prey to eat.”

Thus the owl boxes, five of them mounted on 10-foot posts and one in a tree. The boxes, constructed on Sept. 10, have holes in the front and were placed on the west side of the Civic Center, where experts said the nocturnal birds would best be able to see and hear the rodents tiptoeing in the dark.

“It’s all location, location, location,” said Ed Hulme, the coordinator for the Marin County Integrated Pest Management Program. “Typically, barn owls start looking for the wintertime nests in the fall, so we’re hoping they move in soon.”

Does your Pet act sad?

Fun Cat Fact.

Being an owner of cats I always wondered why they are always licking themselves. Well, actually I knew the answer of course was to clean themselves but it always seemed kind of gross. You know, imagine if we had to lick ourselves to stay clean, not a pretty picture. Then I came across an interesting fact, cat saliva contains a deodorizing agent which keeps cats clean and healthy. Well that explains it, I’m mean they wouldn’t be licking themselves if it wasn’t doing any good. Unfortunately they can’t deodorize their own litter box area or after they have an accident, but Clear The Air surely can. For all of you cat owners check out our Cat/Dog urine removing formula, it works wonders.

Interesting Fact For Clear The Air Product Users.

The great thing about our products is that they are environmentally friendly. To dispose of Clear The Air simply add to your soil, it is an excellent nitrogen soil amendment. So not only do you get a great results by removing odors, it has a dual purpose to be used for gardening. Thought you might like this interesting fact.

New Years Day Interesting Pet Facts

If you recently became a pet owner for the new year, here are some interesting facts about pets you might not have known.

• There are over 77 million cats in the United States. There are 65 million dogs.
• There are more than 9,000 species of birds, but Parakeets, canaries and finches are the most popular species for pets.
• Max is the most popular name for dogs in the U.S., U.K. and Australia.
• Dogs can in fact see in color, but not as well as humans. However, they probably can’t see red or green.
• Studies have shown that cats have better memories than dogs, monkeys or orangutans.
• The world’s first space astronaut was a Russian dog named Laikia.
• The national average for a veterinarian visit in 2006 was $135 for dogs and $112 for cats, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
• Nearly 94 percent of pet owners say their animal pal makes them smile more than once a day.

Thank you to lifetips.com for the information in this post.

Fun Fact.

Why Does a Cat Hiss?

Ever noticed that the sound of a cat’s hiss and that of a snake are quite similar? It seems that it isn’t just a coincidence. The cat’s hiss is actually a case of protective mimicry; in other words, that cat imitates the snake to give an enemy the impression that it too is venomous and dangerous. Predators have a great respect for venomous snakes and will often pause long enough for the snake to pass. Supporting this idea is the fact that a cat will usually spit while hissing-another way that a threatened snake reacts. A cornered cat may also twitch or thrash his/her tail in a special way, impersonating the movements a snake makes. It has also been suggested that as long ago as the nineteenth century the pattern of markings on a tabby cat are not direct, simple camouflage, but rather are imitations of the camouflage markings of a snake. A killer, such as an eagle, seeing a sleeping cat might as a result of this resemblance, think twice before attacking.
Taken from “Catwatching” by Desmond Morriss.

The Difference Between Cats And Dogs

A dog thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me…
They must be gods!

A cat thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me…
I must be a god!

Want your house to smell good when you guests arrive for the holiday parties? Check out the Clear the Air Odor Eliminators.