Good News

Enjoying the fall weather and great outdoors with your pets!
Autumn is a beautiful time of year to enjoy with your pets, but this season presents its own special dangers. While you and your pets enjoy the fall weather, be sure to keep an eye out for these seasonal hazards:

• Antifreeze. Fall means it’s time for many people to change the antifreeze in their cars in preparation for the cold weather just around the corner. Antifreeze is deadly to pets so be sure you never let your pet drink from puddles in driveways, parking lots and other places that could contain antifreeze.
• Autumn Crocus. This beautiful plant flowers in the fall months, but be careful — its bulbs are poisonous to dogs.
• Mistletoe Berries. As your thoughts start to turn to the holidays, you might be tempted to snip off some seasonal mistletoe to decorate with… avoid that temptation and buy the fake stuff instead! Mistletoe berries are very poisonous for animals (and kids) so steer clear of this holiday decoration!
• Mothballs. Getting those sweaters out of storage? Keep the mothballs AWAY from your dog!
• Rodent poison. Some households are plagued by mice and rats when the weather turns cool; they may leave out poison for rodents. Pets can get the bait or get the poisoned rodents; both are very hazardous.
• Snakes. The changing season means snakes are on the move more than usual. Know the snakes in your area, especially any poisonous snakes. Cooler weather means snakes will come out to sun and warm themselves in the morning; keep a careful eye out anytime you’re around rocky ledges.
• Tarantulas. If you live in the Southwest, fall means that tarantulas are on the move. These spiders look scary to us but pose little threat; they can, however, give a very dangerous bite to dogs.
• Thanksgiving leftovers. Avoid offering your pets leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. And never, ever give any pet and type of poultry bones as a treat. Poultry bones splinter easily and can cause serious damage to your pet’s intestines causing life-threatening injury.
• Food waste should go in the trash. You should also avoid feeding raw sweet breads, giblets or necks to pets as a treat since most raw poultry and meat has bacterial contamination. This can result in diarrhea or more serious illness. Many pets are adept at finding food on counter tops and tables, so keep your dinner out of reach. When disposing of turkey, double bag the carcass and move it to a secure garbage bin immediately after the meal.
• Protect your pet from the party. If you are expecting a crowd for Thanksgiving, it may be wise to make up a special room for the pets, equipped with beds, food, water and a source of pleasant noise like a radio tuned to soft music. All of the hustle and bustle of a busy Thanksgiving dinner may be stressful for a shy pet, and a territorial pet may be unhappy with the intrusion. By restricting your pet’s access to company, you can also help minimize the chance that your pet will escape through an open door and get lost.

Holiday Health Matters… things you might not know about fall food choices!
An apple a day! The cold season is nothing to sneeze at, but here’s something that might help: researchers say some apples might do a better job of keeping the doctor away than others. Red Delicious, Northern Spy and Ida Red, pack a greater wallop of disease-fighting antioxidants than other apples studied, reports a Canadian study in the ACS Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Hot drinks in cold weather: they do more than warm the bones. With the winter winds just over the horizon, three popular hot drinks will not only warm you up, but could also heat up your immune system and possibly help prevent certain ailments. Chemists have found that coffee is the number one source of antioxidants in the U.S. diet; hot cocoa contains more antioxidants per cup than tea or red wine, which provide substantial doses; and chamomile tea, the popular herbal drink, may actually help relieve a wide range of health ailments, including colds and menstrual cramps. The cocoa and chamomile papers appeared in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Onions are nothing to cry over. Besides adding flavor to a Thanksgiving favorite like stuffing, onions also may be good for your bones. University of Bern, Switzerland, researchers, in a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, have identified a compound in the popular vegetable that appears to decrease bone loss in laboratory studies.

Cranberries more than a complement to the Thanksgiving turkey. An antioxidant comparison of some of the most common fruits found that the little red berry – in its pure form – contains the highest quantity of disease-fighting phenols, a type of antioxidant that is thought to reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, stroke and heart disease. The comprehensive study of the quantity and quality of antioxidants in fruits, was reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.