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Gardening alert for animals #2

Square Foot Gardening List - http://myweb.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

I will share a quick organic gardening hazard caution for the pet owners.  

If you have your own compost pile, make sure to prevent your pets and even
the wildlife from entering the pile in any stage.  My 10 year old Doberman
decided that something in the pile smelled interesting enough to take a
little taste of late one night. Within 30 minutes was she convulsing,
drooling, and lost all motor control.  This led to a midnight run to the
emergency vet, where they immediately thought she had eaten slug bait or
some similar poison.  As I use no chemicals in my yard and she had no access
to anything in the house we were stumped.  She was forced to vomit, produced
small pieces of egg shell and some food eaten earlier in the day.  It was
not even the egg shells that made her ill, as I rinse and "cure" them for
2-3 weeks before adding to pile, rather something else bacterial that was in
her "snack".  The bacteria attacked her neurological systems.  She amazingly
pulled through this very serious life threatening event.  Before I even went
to pick her up to bring her home, there was small mesh wire completely
surrounding my compost piles. Not only will she never be exposed or tempted
to snack there, but neither will the neighborhood cats, or wildlife that
used to feed regularly on the fresh veggie remains.  

Please pass this on to anyone you know that gardens and does an open
container method of composting.  This could have easily been a deadly event
for my precious gardening companion.

Tristan Gutknecht
Renton, Washington  

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Callwood III [r*@uvi.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 8:41 AM
To: Square Foot Gardening List
Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Gardening alert for animals


Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Sammy's huwumin wrote:
> 
> I'm so careful & use only organic materials.  You just never know.

Please be aware that "organic" does not mean "non-toxic" in any way,
shape or form.  Your dog should not be eating or drinking organic
fertilizers either; it's plant food (and in an unnaturally high
concentration at that), not dog food.

-- 
@->-`-,----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Cousin Ricky      USDA zone 11, U.S. Virgin Islands   18.3°N  |
|  rcallwo@uvi.edu   previously zone 6, Massachusetts    64.9°W  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+


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