A primary concern for many dog obedience training households is chewing destruction. In order to stop digging and chewing behaviors, it’s important to reference the dog training tips of a top dog trainer and to utilize those dog training techniques to train your dog to keep his mouth off of things that simply don’t belong to him.
In training your dog, you’ve probably noticed that he uses his nose to determine if something smells like food. If the smell is not repulsive, that item is likely to end up in his mouth. Puppies, with their curious natures, are particularly notorious for viewing the world as their biscuits.
This behavior can be destructive to your home and landscape, but it can also be destructive to your dog. Plants can recover from a good ravaging, but the real destruction comes in the form of toxicity to your dog’s system, which can result in terrible sickness, or even death.
Here are some common plants that are toxic to dogs:
Lantana: Also known as Ham ‘n Eggs or Yellow Sage, this tropical plant’s blooms appear in clusters of red, orange, yellow, blue or white. It contains lantadene A and B, which causes photosensitization, jaundice, loss of appetite, constipation, weakness, and ulceration.
Dumbcane: Also known as Dieffenbachia, this is a plant with large, green, patterned leaves. The cells of this plant are shaped like needles, and can cause burning, erythema, edema, oral irritation, excessive drooling, and swelling.
Philodendron: This vine is a common green houseplant that can cause oral irritation, excessive drooling, difficulty swallowing, and vomiting.
Caladium: This plant’s leaves are heart shaped and display varying patterns of pink, white, and green. Ingestion can result in oral irritation, excessive drooling, difficulty swallowing, and vomiting.
Elephant Ears: Sounds yummy, but its nature dictates otherwise. This plant is a larger version of the Caladium described above, with similar ingestion symptoms.
Ivy: Though the berries are less toxic than the leaves of this climbing vine, this plant’s toxicity is real, with abdominal pain, hyper salivation, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Rosary Pea: Also known as Prayer Bean, the red berries of this plant are often used to create rosaries. However, there’s nothing holy about the bloody vomiting and diarrhea, tremors, increased heart rate, fever, shock, and death that can result from its ingestion.
Mistletoe: This holiday kissing treat is no treat for a dog’s system. Its glossy green leaves and white berries can cause gastrointestinal disorders, cardiovascular collapse, dyspnea, bradycardia, erratic behavior, vomiting, diarrhea, and hypotension.
Castor Bean: This plant bears large, green leaves with seven or eight points, and prickly blue beans. A mere ounce of seeds, which contain ricin, can cause oral irritation, increased thirst, vomiting, diarrhea, kidney failure, convulsions, loss of appetite, weakness, trembling, difficulty breathing, coordination loss, central nervous system depression, fever, blood in stool, coma, and death.
Peace Lily: This plant, which bears sizeable green leaves and large, sparse white lilies, is only peaceful when not ingested. Otherwise, its calcium oxalate crystals can cause oral irritation, excessive drooling, and difficulty swallowing.
Schefflera: Also known as the Umbrella Tree, this plant has woody stems and sectioned, multi leafed bunches of glossy green foliage. If ingested, it can cause oral irritation, excessive drooling, vomiting, and difficulty swallowing.
Chrysanthemum: This common plant, affectionately known as the Mum, and characterized by multicolored fall blooms, can elicit gastrointestinal upset, drooling, vomiting, diarrhea, depression, and loss of coordination.
This is just a sampling of plants that can have poisonous effects on your dog. Some others include Autumn Crocus, Yew, Amaryllis, Kalanchoe, Cyclamen, Oleander, Marijuana, Azalea, Rhododendron, Tulip, Narcissus, Sago Palm, Lily of the Valley, Jack in the Pulpit, Hyacinth, Delphinium, Fox Glove, Aster, Poinsettia, Daffodil, and Iris.
Remove houseplants from your dog’s reach and supervise him when he’s outdoors. Crate training, clicker training, and effective dog obedience training techniques will all greatly contribute to the safety of your dog. Training a dog with proven, positive dog training tips will weigh in when he’s faced with the decision to eat or not to eat: which can be a decision that can result in life, sickness, or death.
