Watch out, your dog could be risking it’s life just by playing! According to the article “Dogs best avoid sticks and ponds” Sainsburys Bank is urging pet owners to keep their dogs on a short leash in order to avoid potential life threatening dangers.
These new reports appear as a result of studying claims made on pet insurance. Every year there are on average nearly twenty nine thousand claims on pet insurance equating to a value of about five million pounds. Many claims are to do with lacerations caused by chasing a stick – that all time favourite pastime of a dog.
Dogs that love to chase sticks can become vulnerable to cuts and grazes to their skin and when infected could become life threatening. If a cut from infected sticks this foreign bacteria could lead to a dog catching septicaemia.
Sticks are not the only problem because there is nothing a dog likes more than throwing himself into a mucky pond or puddle! Poisonous algae are very real concerns causing problems to a dog’s health. Should these kinds of pond growth become ingested, a dog could fall ill. Nearly ten million pounds were paid out in pet insurance settlements because of drinking pond water.
The days of carefree playfulness on walks could be numbered as we all invest in a harmless rubber stick for our dogs to chase and stop our dogs from diving into those ponds.
Unfortunately we can’t protect our pets from every potential disaster out there but we can make things easier on ourselves. One definitive action we can take is to take out some pet insurance – just in case.