Many adults know the dangers of drugs and alcohol, unfortunately pets do not.
To understand if pet parents truly know the risks these substances pose to their pets, the Family Center for Recovery surveyed over 1,000 pet owners who admitted to seeing their pet ingest drugs or other substances.
While cats are known for their curiosity, it was dogs who got into the most trouble with 807 participants confessing to seeing their canine consume drugs or alcohol as opposed to only 274 for cats.
The survey found that alcohol is the substance accidentally consumed by the most pets, with 27.8 percent of participants admitting to watching their pets consume alcohol, with some going as far to say that they gave alcohol to their pet on purpose.
To some, the idea of letting your pet enjoy a cold one with you may seem fun, but alcohol can cause serious damage to pets, often causing vomiting and diarrhea, and in some cases difficulty breathing and even death.
About 1 in 4 participants confessed they thought marijuana inhalation or consumption was safe for pets. Like alcohol, marijuana can cause serious health issues for your pet, especially if they consume it in large quantities.
Aside from alcohol and marijuana, over-the-counter medication was the most frequent drug consumed by pets, often because a human left the medicine in a place they thought was out of their’s pets reach but was not.
Unfortunately, this was not the case for all drug-consuming pets. Almost 10 percent of the males and 5 percent of the females polled said they purposefully got their pet high on drugs so they could share the experience, and close to 8 percent of men and 4 percent of women said they gave their per substances out of boredom.
To learn more about this survey and the Family Center for Recovery, visit FCFR’s website.