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Home Hazards for Your Dog

7/25/2019

The author's dog, Teak, loves balls and Frisbees. He's not good at returning either.

Your back yard and garden is the perfect place for your dog to exercise and have fun, but even a fenced yard can be potentially dangerous.

If you want to create a dog-friendly area, here are some substances to fence out of reach of your pets.

Acorns – The toxic ingredient in acorns is tannic acid, which can cause damage to the liver and kidneys.

Antifreeze – Speaking of your garage, be aware that antifreeze can cause deadly kidney failure in dogs. The main ingredient in antifreeze, ethylene glycol, tastes sweet and is attractive to dogs. Because poisoning has been a serious issue, all major antifreeze manufacturers have recently agreed to add bittering agents to their products to reduce canine and human exposures. However, older products may still be lurking in your garage. If you own a dog, don’t store antifreeze and don’t let your car’s radiator leak.

Artificial Sweeteners – Xylitol, a popular artificial sweetener commonly found I sugar-free candy and gum, is extremely dangerous for both dogs and cats causing a spike in insulin and a severe drop in blood glucose. If not treated immediately, pets will develop hypoglycemic seizures and go into shock. Symptoms begin suddenly and will result in death without medical intervention. If you own dogs, it’s best not to stock any products containing xylitol.

Chocolate – A compound in chocolate called theobromine is toxic to both dogs and cats. It can cause hyperactivity, cardiac arrhythmia, seizures, even death. The compound is more plentiful in darker chocolate but even milk and white are dangerous.
There is no antidote for chocolate poisoning. However, veterinarians may induce vomiting, administer activated charcoal, and/or provide intravenous fluid to help flush toxins out of the body. If the ingestion and treatment is performed in the first four hours, the prognosis is good.

Compost –Moldy food and garden waste in compost can produce dangerous mycotoxins which are highly dangerous to dogs. Mycotoxicosis, which is poisoning by-products contaminated by fungi, can be fatal. Keep your compost out of reach, and seek urgent veterinary advice if you suspect your dog has eaten the contents of a compost bin.

Cocoa Garden Mulch – Pets are attracted to the chocolaty aroma, but the ingredients in cocoa mulch can be deadly if ingested. It contains cocoa bean shells (poisonous to dogs and cats), combined with chemicals that can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, muscle tremors, seizures and death. As lovely as cocoa mulch looks and smells in your yard, choose a safer alternative if you own dogs.

Cooked Bones – though it may seem counter-intuitive, cooked bones are dangerous treats for dogs. They splinter easily and can puncture delicate gastrointestinal tissue, leading to a life-threatening condition called peritonitis that occurs when intestinal contents leak into the abdominal cavity. The only treatment is surgery.

Fabric Dryer Sheets – If your house is like mine, these little buggers show up everywhere. They have a lot of uses beyond the laundry room, from freshening drawers to removing dust from ceiling fans, blinds and computer or TV monitors.

There’s even a dangerous hack that recommends rubbing your pet’s coat with a dryer sheet to calm them during electrical storms by reducing the static electricity in their fur. But beware! Many (read most) dryer sheets contain ingredients that can be toxic to your pet. Go for a plant-based version such as Method (Beach Sage) or Seventh Generation Natural. Better yet, don’t use them on your pets. The same goes for bedding—skip the liquid fabric softener here also.

Fertilizers- If your dogs are like ours, they love to roll around on a grassy lawn. Fertilizers can be highly toxic to dogs, and it’s easy for your dog to come into contact when your sprinkle or spray it over a lawn or garden.

Organic fertilizers may sound safe, but they’re often worse. Natural/organic fertilizers contain “meals” left over in the farming or meat industries—bone meal, blood meal and fish meal. These products may smell attractive to your pet but they are not good for their digestive systems.

Products with additives such as insecticides are even more dangerous

Marijuana – If you have a dog, keep an eye on your stash! Although edible marijuana products are the most attractive to dogs, they’ve been known to consume baggies of buds straight up. It used to be marijuana toxicity usually wasn’t fatal, but there have been result fatalities after consumption of medical-grade products.

Mushrooms – While not every mushroom is toxic, it’s best to remove all mushrooms from yards where pets might eat them. If you see your dog eating a wild mushroom, seek veterinary care. If caught early, the vet can induce vomiting and avoid many of the negative effects. Try to bring one of the mushrooms with you to the vet.

Human Pain Relievers
Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, any other NSAID, aspirin – while it might be a temptation to help out a four-legged friend with arthritis or other pain, DON’T’ DO IT! These are all toxic for both dogs and cats.

Pest-Control Products – Household pests certainly are nuisances. Snails and slugs destroy vegetable gardens, gophers dig up the yard, and mice and rats cause damage and contamination (and eat our citrus in Arizona).

But the poisons designed to kill these pests also can kill dogs. Gopher bait liberates phosphide gas into dogs’ intestines, causing intestinal necrosis. A painful death can follow. Snail and slug bait causes tremors and seizures—and again painful death.

Rat and mouse bait either contains products that prevent coagulation—leading to life-threatening hemorrhage—or a product that causes brain swelling and death.
An antidote exists for the hemorrhage-causing products, but they are being phased out in favor of the product that causes brain swelling, and for which there is no antidote.

All of these pesticides come in forms that are designed to be attractive to live pests—and are therefore also attractive to dogs. Don’t keep them in your house or garage.

Toads – Toads produce a venom through their skin when they’re under attack, and it can be fatal if left untreated. The toxins cause dogs to foam at the mouth, vomit, and show signs of distress such as pawing at the mouth and eyes. Take your dog to the vet if it displays any of the above signs after getting a hold of a toad.

Weed Killer – Many weed killers contain glyphosate. It’s dangerous if swallowed, licked, or brushed against. If you plan to use weed killer, keep your dog inside to avoid any problems.

Toxic Weeds – These weeds are known to be toxic to dogs: Foxglove, Devil’s Weed, Poison Oak, and Poison Hemlock.

Other weeds have parts that can break off and become lodged in your dog’s skin. The most common culprit is Foxtail. It’s one of the most dangerous weeds your dog can get into. Foxtail is a type of grass with seeds. These barbed seeds can enter your dog’s mouth, nose or ears. They can also become embedded in your dog’s feet, skin or genital area. They have an arrow shape that enables them to travel, and they can dive deep into any orifice, well beyond sight. Not only is the dog’s body incapable of degrading or decomposing the foxtails, these plants are barbed in such a way that they can only more in a “forward” direction. Unless caught early, surgery may be required to extract the irritant.

Sago Palms – These striking ornamental palms are phenomenally toxic for dogs. We’re talking liver failure, uncontrollable hemorrhage and death. I have one of these, but luckily it’s in the front yard and out of limits.
Of course, this isn’t the only plant/flower toxic for dogs. I’ve listed the most common below.

Plants, Garden and Household Substances Poisonous to Dogs & Cats

Plants

Azalea

NOTE: Plants in Bold can be fatal

African Violet, Aloe Vera, Amaryllis (bulbs), Asparagus Fern, Azalea, Baby’s Breath, Bird of Paradise, Bittersweet, Bleeding Heart, Bluebell, Boxwood, Caladium, Calla lily, Castor Bean, Chrysanthemum, Clematis, Cocoa husks or mulch, Crocus, Cyclammen, Daffodil (bulbs), Datura,

Datura

Deadly Nightshade, Delphinium, Dieffenbachia, Dumb Cane

Easter Lily (especially poisonous to cats), Elephant Ears, English Ivy, Foxglove, Geranium

Heavenly Bamboo, Hellebore, Hemlock, Henbane, Hibiscus, Holly (berries), Hyacinth (bulbs), Iris (roots), Jack in the Pulpit, Jimson Weed (Thorn Apple)

Lantana, Larkspur, Laurel, Lily, Lily of the Valley, Lobelia, Maple Tree, Marijuana, Milkweed, Mistletoe (berries), Morning Glory, Mother-in-law’s Tongue, Mountain Laurel

Oleander, Pencil Cactus, Peony (roots), Philodendron, Poinsettia (leaves, stems and sap), Poison Ivy, Poison Hemlock, Poison Oak, Poison Sumac, Primrose

Ragwort, Rhododendron, Rue, Sago Palm, Spider Plant, Tiger Lily (especially for cats), Tobacco plant, Tulip

Walnut, Water Hemlock, Weeping Fig, Wild cherry (twigs and foliage), Wolfsbane, Yarrow, Yew (berries and foliage).

Vegetables & Fruits:

Note: Fruits & Vegetables in Bold can be fatal

Apple and Apricot seeds, Avocado, Broccoli, Cherry pits, Peach (stones and leaves), Garlic, Grapes

Mushrooms, Nuts (all, but particularly Brazil, walnut, pecan, pistachios, macadamia and peanuts)

Onion, Persimmon seeds, Potato (green skin and sprouts), Raisins, Rhubarb

Tomato Plant (green fruit, leaves and stems).

My happy boys, Woody and Teak

The bottom line is this: We’re a nation of dog lovers, and we welcome our furry best friends into our homes as one of our own.

But as tempting as it is to throw your dog the odd table scrap or treat, or even let them forage, it is very important to make sure you know what can be harmful to your pet.

If you have any doubt that they might have eaten something they shouldn’t, or if they are showing any signs of distress or unusual behavior, check in with your vet right away.

Until next week, be happy: Hug your pet!

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Outlander's Diana Gabaldon

7/16/2019

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I have had the pleasure of listening to Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, speak twice in the last two years. She gave us insights on her writing process.

“In 1988, I decided to write a novel, just for practice, to learn how to write,” Gabaldon says. “I had no intention of showing it to anyone.” She was a research professor at Arizona State at the time, so she decided a historical novel would be the easiest to research and write.

She had just watched a rerun of the Doctor Who TV series, “He had a young 17-year-old Scots lad that he’d picked up in 1745,” she explains. “He appeared in his kilt, you know. And I thought, well, that’s rather fetching.” It didn’t matter where and when she set the book, she was going to have to look up everything anyway. “So I said, Scotland 18th century it is.”

And the leading male character, Jamie Frasier, was conceived.

By the way, when Gabaldon first saw actor Sam Heughan, who plays Jaimie Frasier in the Starz TV series, she knew they had cast the right man. “That man is a Scot to the bone and Jamie Fraser to the heart.”

She set her handsome Highlander and his Scottish clan as a supporters of the Jacobites, defending his family home against the Protestant English militia.

“About the third day of writing, I decided, ‘I’ll have a female character to play off all these men in kilts. And given that we’re dealing with the Jacobite uprising, perhaps I should make her an Englishwoman. That way, we’ll have lots of conflict built in.”

Gabaldon stops to take a breath and a sip of water. She talks really fast, you have to pay close attention to her Laure Bacall-type throaty voice. And she’s articulate. No “uhs,” “uhms” or pauses to choose her words. The woman is a born story-teller.

“So, I introduced her, and the minute I put her in, she refused to talk like an 18th century person. She immediately started making smartass modern remarks, and she also started telling the story herself. I said, “If you’re going to fight me all the way through the book, go ahead and be modern, and I’ll figure out how you got there later.”

The audience laughs and she adds, “It’s all Claire’s fault that there’s time travel in it.”

From then on, the story centered on Claire, a former combat nurse, who takes a second honeymoon to Scotland in 1946 with her husband, Frank.

Out for a walk one morning near Inverness, she stumbles upon Craigh na Dun, and ancient circle of stones that turns out to be a portal to the past, and Claire slips through to 1743. Before she can even blink, she finds herself in mortal danger and is rescued by the handsome kilted clansman Jamie Fraser.

Creating a richly layered, multisensory world is important to Gabaldon, and she is really, really good at it. In fact, the attention to detail, including historical facts, is one of the reasons Outlander resonates with so many readers. It makes the books transportive.

She writes with such deep familiarity for the land and people that I was surprised to learn she had never visited Scotland when she wrote Outlander, the first book in her series.

In fact, she was born and raised in Flagstaff. He father, Tony Gabaldon (1931–1998), was an Arizona state senator from Flagstaff for sixteen years and later a supervisor of Coconino County. Her ancestors are not Scottish either. Her father was of Mexican ancestry, and her mother was English.

But Gabaldon’s immersive style propels readers into the world she is describing. “I start with a kernel—an object, a vivid image, a line of dialogue—and I write down a line or two that attempts to capture where that was,” she says. “Writing immersively is a matter of technique but also seeing what’s there that’s having a sensory effect. If you use any three or more of the five senses in a scene, that scene will become three-dimensional, and readers will feel like they’re there.”

It took her about 18 months to write Outlander. Keep in mind, however, the book is 850 pages in trade paperback, or about 213,000 words. You writers out there who despair of ever finishing your novel take heart. Gabaldon, who was working full time during her first novel, with three kids and a spouse, wrote approximately 400 words a day between midnight and 3:00am, slipping in a short nap before she began.

The thing that amazes me is that she writes without a net: no outline, character sketches or plot plan. "I don't write in a straight line at all," she says "I just write bits and pieces and then glue them together."

Her unorthodox approach results in magic. When, during Q&A, I commented that writing without a plan would be terrifying, her reply was pure poetic Diana Gabaldon: "It's like raising new continents. You look out over this vast sea and you see volcanoes popping up here and there. As they rise and lava goes down the sides, mountains form, and then gradually it all becomes clear. You begin to see how one mountain flows down into a valley and up into another. To start with all you see are the mountains, but gradually, you can look below the surface and see the connections."

Gabaldon is currently working on the ninth book in the Outlander series, Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone.

The Outlander film series based on the novels is available on Netflix and Starz.

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Little Free Libraries

7/7/2019

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Are you a bookworm? Do you spend a great deal of time purchasing books online or from your local bookstores?

Then you will love the tiny library phenomenon that has probably already hit your neighborhood. You just have to know where to look.

I was amazed to find that, with the addition of my library last week, even our little mountain community of Munds Park has a total of 5 Little Free Libraries.

These adorable tiny libraries are part of a larger social movement that started in 2009, when Tod Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a birdhouse-like replica of a one-room schoolhouse and mounted it in his front yard, as a tribute to his mother, who was a teacher. He filled the little box with free books, and a sign that said, “Take a book, leave a book.”

The movement caught on. A registered non-profit since 2012, Little Free Library now boasts more than 80,000 wee branches in 91 countries.
It’s easy to create a tiny library. Simply build (or upcycle) a water-tight structure, place it in a publicly accessible location on your property (if near a road, make sure there is a safe place to pull off the road and get out. Add some books you’d like to re home, and wait for your readers to arrive. To ensure the library is always stocked, a “take a book, leave a book” honor system should be posted on the box.

Little Free Library enthusiasts are encouraged to build their own designs. Here’s an old refrigerator that was used in a dorm and now has be re-purposed. It required no renovations, by the way. Just add books!

You can also build your own, following the instruction for the classic Little Free Library kits on the group’s website.

The website also gives clear directions for mounting the libraries on posts so they are protected and accessible to eager neighborhood readers.

If starting from scratch isn’t your thing, Little Free Library models are available for order, including a 100% recycled wood and plastic model with a quaint pitched roof.

Don't you love the Snoopy and Woodstock this homeowner added to their simple wooden box?

There are plenty of library custodians who go above and beyond to make their tiny pop-up libraries stand out. After all, these structures aren’t just about education –they’re also about community and the arts.

For example, architectural designer John Locke has repurposed four phone booths in New York City as pop-up libraries. His aim is to preserve the special social space that phone booths provide in cities. Books for his kiosks, part of his Department of Urban Betterment project, are donated by local residents. Locke designs and makes the plywood shelving that he then hangs from the booths, which are still fully functional for calls.

The re-purposing concept is adopted in Europe as well. In 2002, British Telecom had 92,000 phone boxes in Britain, but about half of them were removed due to the popularity of mobile phones.

Rather than rip out the rest, the company came up with Adopt a Kiosk program in 2009. Communities were offered the chance to buy one of the iconic red telephone boxes for 1 pound and encouraged to turn them into spaces that local residents would actually use.

The scheme has been a great success, and more than 1,500 of the boxes have been converted to grocery stores, wildlife information centers, tea rooms, art galleries, defibrillator points and—you guessed it---tiny libraries.

The popularity of the iconic red box quickly moved across the pond. Free Little Library offers a version of the mini British Phone Booth library for sale.

Hey, Munds Park! This Log Cabin design would be perfect in a front yard!

Here are some of my other favorite designs to inspire you.

"Books are magic and everyone needs a little magic in their lives. This Little Free Library is an ode to Harry Potter and the wonderful J.K. Rowling.

We hope you grab a book that speaks to you and get lost in the simple magic of reading."

Allison S.
Pottstown, PA