🌿 Tiny Toxins: Paws Off Plants 🐾 (A little series combining my love of plants and pets 🌿🐶)

Today’s tiny check: Cyclamen.

Those beautiful swept-back flowers and heart-shaped leaves?

Gorgeous.

Snack? Not so much 😅

Cyclamen contains irritating compounds called saponins. These are found throughout the plant, but are particularly concentrated in the underground tuber.

For some dogs, chewing or eating Cyclamen may mean:

🐾 Drooling

🐾 Vomiting

🐾 Diarrhoea

🐾 Tummy discomfort

Larger amounts, particularly of the tuber, can cause much more serious signs and need urgent veterinary attention.

Before anyone panics — having Cyclamen in your home or garden doesn’t automatically mean your dog is going to eat it.

Many dogs will happily ignore plants altogether.

But curious puppies, adolescent dogs, enthusiastic diggers, enrichment seekers, or dogs who explore the world with their mouths may decide to investigate.

🐾 One small thing to do today:

✔ Check where your Cyclamen is growing or displayed

✔ Is it accessible to a curious explorer?

✔ Remember the tuber underneath the soil is important too, particularly if your dog likes digging

✔ Move, manage or supervise where needed

If you think your dog has eaten Cyclamen, contact your vet for advice and let them know which part may have been eaten if you can.

No guilt if this is news to you — most of us aren’t handed a pet-safe plant handbook when we bring our animals home.

One tiny check. One safer environment 🩵

🌿 Tiny Toxins: Paws Off Plants is a bite-sized series exploring common plants and other little things that may be worth a second look when sharing our homes and gardens with pets.

Got something you’d like me to cover next? Pop it in the comments!

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