Why Create a Pet Safe Garden?

Have you ever taken your pet to the emergency room or their veterinarian for a sick concern? What if you could completely avoid that bill?

If you are like me and have pets that you care about very much, I am sure you would love to keep them healthy for both their wellbeing and your wallet.

Emergency rooms are expensive. Sometimes its between life and death to take your pets so why not guarantee that your pets will not end up in the emergency room over your plants. Yes, that can happen!

Don’t believe me? Ask any cat owner who has owned lilies. In fact, I have a story about a cat who ate lilies. Read on!

Below I have written the exact reasons that I wish I had known before owning my first pets and the advice I give paying pet owners all the time for free.

This post may contain affiliate marketing. I only recommend products that I would stand by.

About the Author- Why I Offer Free Pet Safe Gardening Advice

Hi! I’m Kait and this is my boss kitty, Sterling. He is the manager of the household so I am sure you will be meeting him throughout my blogs. I have a dog named Brie, a husband, Dylan and a 1 year old daughter, Adelaide and we live crazy lives!

My husband works full time and I work as a veterinary technician and a full time mom (of 3 if your count my fur children).

A little about myself, I have been working as a veterinary technician for over 10 years. I have worked in multiple different states and have spent most of my career in emergency and specialty care.

I have a true passion for helping my patients when they are in need the most and emergency medicine is where I can do that.

I love my job, I really do. It is so rewarding but I also wish that pet owners like you would understand that there are things you can avoid to keep your pets safe. I don’t want to see them in the hospital anymore than you want them there.

I started this blog originally as a way of educating readers about pet safety and pet emergencies. It quickly turned into a discussion about my hobby (gardening) and the easiest way to keep your pets out of harms way with some simple changes.

This blog caters not only to the needs of pet owners but also to garden lovers

So that is why I am here. To offer real life stories and advice while we enjoy a wonderfully beautiful hobby that can both feed our families (and pets) and bring some needed charm to the world.

Check out some of my other blogs:

Marshmallow The Cat

I wanted to share a story about one of my very memorable patients. I’ve cared for a lot of patients, all unique in their own way but in all honesty, I don’t think I would be able to name all of them. There are a select few that have really stood out, like Marshmallow (who used to eat her pills straight out of my hand- I’ve never seen A CAT do that).

I received permission from Marshmallow’s owner to tell her story.

Marshmallow visited my hospital in June of last year. It has been a little over a year since her recovery journey began.

To tell a little about Marshmallow, she is a white Persian cat who loves playing fetch and laying on her owners laptop. Marshmallow also rules her household and bosses her fur siblings around. She is in a household with 4 large dogs. She is now 7 years old but still has a lot of spunk and enjoys watching movies with her human’s.

In 2023, Marshmallows owner had called the emergency hospital and was concerned because Marshmallow was acting off. She was not eating when she was always around for every meal and she was hiding. Marshmallow is a very social cat.

She had seen her primary veterinarian the week before and was doing well at that time. Marshmallow came into our emergency clinic for a check up. We ran some diagnostics including bloodwork and Marshmallows kidney values were very high!

I won’t be getting too much into the technical side of Marshmallow’s case but being that everything came back completely normal the week prior made the concern for toxin ingestion high on the list.

Marshmallow’s mom wanted to do everything for her and decided after discussion and consideration to admit her to the hospital. Her mom went home and later that night called to tell us that her lily bouquet that she had received from a friend had bites taken out of it.

Her mom had done research and found that lilies were toxic to her baby, Marshmallow.

Knowing the toxin made it easier for us to treat Marshmallow but given her kidney values she was at the hospital for an entire week getting fluid therapy, medications and snuggles (which were a must because she was so sweet!).

It cost Marshmallows owner $15,466.20 for Marshmallows care start to finish for the week and then an additional amount for follow up care totaling $16,301.66 for both the stay and aftercare. Luckily, Marshmallow’s mom had pet insurance.

Today, Marshmallow is doing well and is almost completely back to her normal self enjoying her favorite movies.

Why Gardening?

Gardening is truly a very easy and rewarding hobby that offers a great reward. Imagine being able to feed your whole family for a year from a few packets of seeds.

It’s crazy to think that one little seed could produce so much for you.

There are edible flowers, decorative flowers and produce and all just bring an aesthetically pleasing reward. It is also one of the easiest ways to keep your pets out of harms way.

So why not?

Goals

We all have goals in our lives. My goal for this blog is to build a community of readers who feel welcome to express their journeys and ask questions.

Another goal of mine is to one day have a full working garden that can feed my family and my pets for an entire year. I would like to bring you all along!

My husband and I have already started the process and the best thing is we both have our favorite things to do in the garden. I love the plant care and my husband is more into the composting and building raised beds. In fact, he just built me a beautiful raised bed that has been amazing for my back and plants this year.

I’m going to make him build me 2 more (shh…🤫).

Conclusion

Like everyone, I am not the perfect being and although I have been a veterinary technician for a long time, gardening has become a more recent hobby (over the last couple of years).

I will be taking you all along on my journey of learning about increasing the yield from my harvest, canning, pet (and some human) recipes and gardening challenges all while keeping everything in this blog well researched to be safe for your pets.

I welcome you to subscribe if you would like weekly posts in a welcoming community.