good morning don’t fucking use essential oils around your pets especially birds and reptiles and cats spraying your pet with diluted lavender isn’t going to antioxidize them or whatever stupid bullshit you pulled off a holistic website
There are SOME essential oils that are safe for pets but many that can and WILL injure or kill your pet. Do your damn research just like you would for yourself
There are NO essential oils safe for your pets.
I did my research. I am a biochemist.
Essential oils are concentrated extracts, which are highly volatile. Their fumes are full of phenols, monoterpene hydrocarbons, phenylpropanes, and ketones. These compounds are toxic and can cause serious illness and death through extended exposure.
Let’s take a popular one: lavender oil. The active ingredient in essential lavender oil is linaool. Linaool is a cytotoxin, it destroys cell membranes. Inhaled and placed on skin, it can cause permanent damage.
“but what if you dilute it?”
Dilution won’t work. Long time exposure of a diluted toxin will result in the same damage as short term exposure of a concentrated one. Ingesting small amounts of radioactive material over time will give me the same cancer a gamma burst would. And if you dilute it extensively, you’re basically removing any effect you desired of the oil.
There’s no reason to use essential oils around pets. They make calming supplements that aren’t volatile and toxic. They make calming pheramone diffusers. If your animal is destructive (like a plucking parrot) then they’re understimulated and bored. Spritzing your pet with dangerous oils aren’t a substitute for reassessing and changing husbandry.
I’ve used lavender countless times on my cats Sebastian. He has huge paws and lots of fur so he’s susceptible to yeast infections between his little toe beans, and lavender helps speed up the healing process and ease the swelling a bit. I’ve also used lavender for burns on my dogs paw pads.
first of all, if you have a problem with me @ me next time instead of hiding in your tags
Second of all, did you like… actually read what I wrote? Because I literally stated that lavender oil has a toxic component that can cause cell damage over time. Did you conveniently skip over that part?
I have seen MULTIPLE internet sites listing essential oils that are studied and known to be toxic to cats and dogs as “safe”. There are many, many bad sources out there. If you do your research, make sure you’re actually basing your information on scientifically verified, peer-reviewed information, not tertiary sources and anecdotal information.
Do not use essential oils on your pets or around your pets.
If your pet has chronic paw infections, take it to the vet. Your vet can address the root cause (lots of fur and big paws shouldn’t inherently cause yeast infections and I’d really suggest looking at the cat’s diet and other lifestyle issues) and provide more effective, safer treatments.
Essential oils are incredibly toxic for reptiles, birds, and small animals as well. Reptiles and birds are especially susceptible to the fumes (VOCs). This includes essential oil diffusers, which I’ve often seen touted as “safer” than candles. They are not safer and still release dangerous VOCs.
^^^^
Scented oils are fine for some animals, such as rabbits, we use scented oils to calm them, but these oils are not strong, and not essential oils as they are known to be.
Wait, so does this mean those things that diffuse the oils in the air? My mom uses one of those at her house and my parents have two dogs. Does that mean I should find her an alternative? This is the first I’ve heard of this.
If you love Scottish fold cats, I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear. Please, please read on anyway. If you are considering adopting a Scottish fold, PLEASE continue reading. This information needs to be more widely known.
In 2008, the Journal of Small Animal practice released a short report on disorders associated with breeds of cats. In this report, the authors mentioned the Scottish fold:
People who own them may be “charmed” by their round faces and open expression (and they may not realise that the reason the cats do not move around too much is because they are variably crippled with arthritis).1
The gene that causes the cute fold in the Scottish fold’s ear also leads to the development of a degenerative disorder called osteochondrodysplasia. ALL Scottish folds have this disorder, whether they show symptoms or not- the fold in their ears is caused by a cartilage deformity that also affects their joints.
Osteochondrodysplasia leads to crippling osteoarthritis, which affects Scottish folds at much younger ages than other breeds of cats. In cats heterozygous for the gene, the disease’s progression can be seen in cats as young as six months. In homozygous cats, it can be seen as early as seven weeks old.
Affected cats may be grossly deformed, with short wide limbs and a short, inflexible tail. They show lameness, swollen wrist (carpal) and ankle (tarsal) joints, have an abnormal gait, and are reluctant to move and jump. Severely affected individuals become crippled and unable to walk.
…Many affected cats are euthanased earlier in life due to the profound effects of this disease.2
The breed is often described as “placid” and “calm.” This is due to the fact that they are constantly in pain due to this disorder. Even in mild, ‘asymptomatic’ cases which can occur in heterozygous cats, they may still be experiencing pain due to cats’ tendency to hide their suffering.
Many breeders of Scottish folds claim that not all heterozygous cats have the disorder, because the studies that examined the cats (which were all, heterozygous or not, shown to have it) had small sample sizes.
In 2003, Lorraine Shelton, a specialist in genetic diseases, offered to pay for 300 x-rays of healthy adult Scottish folds to prove that the disorder was not present in some heterozygous cats.
…She has asked a list of 300 Scottish Fold breeders from around the world to go to their vet to get X-rays done. She had offered to pay for these X-rays but not a single breeder had taken up that offer. You could not know whether this problem existed unless an X-ray was taken. If somebody would send her an X-ray of a healthy hind leg of a folded eared cat, she would be grateful as she wanted to see the very first one.3
To date, no one has taken her up on the offer. The breeders’ unwillingness to have their cats examined speaks volumes. The authors of all studies on these cats agree: it ethically wrong to continue breeding these cats.
It disturbs me that any breeder would knowingly continue to create animals that will be in pain throughout their lives. As a cat lover myself, I am begging you, please do not buy Scottish folds. Do not support these unethical breeding practices, or the concept that it is acceptable to intentionally breed unhealthy animals for the sake of how they look.
Before you buy ANY animal, please do your research. If a breed suffers from high incidences of genetic disorders, don’t use your money to support the creation of more animal suffering.
PiraticOctopus 