Green Pets: 7 Easy Tips For An Eco Friendly Pet
Green pets or an eco friendly pet means your pet is going green! Eco-friendly living extends to our precious pets. They rely on us to provide healthy and safe home environments free of environmental hazards. And because our pets have a carbon pawprint, there are simple steps you, as an animal parent/guardian, can take to green your pets and help the planet, too!
7 Easy Tips For An Eco Friendly Pet:
1. Rescue an animal. This act alone will save the life of a dog, cat, bunny, rodent, horse or whatever animal(s) you choose to bring home from an animal shelter or rescue group. In the United States alone, each year 4 to 6 million dogs and cats end up in animal shelters. Of these animals, 2-3 million are put to death because not enough homes are available.
2. Buy quality food. Many types of pet food use fillers made from corn and/or by-products (meat “meals”), artificial flavourings and colours, and ingredients that are grown with toxic pesticides or synthetic preservatives or contain ingredients that are deemed unfit for humans. Avoid these! These pet foods are harmful to your pet’s health and to the environment. Look for natural organic pet food; the more natural, wholesome and fresh the food can be the better. Another option is home-made food for your pets. There are multiple recipes that can be found online. Buying bulk, if possible, also cuts down on the packaging waste and saves you the extra trips and gas needed to go back to the pet store.
3. Avoid household chemical products. Pets can’t read labels and their curiosity or boredom can make them chew or ingest toxic chemicals such as toiletries and cleaning products, etc. Furthermore, the fumes these products emit create a polluted indoor air environment. Best approach is to not have any of these products at home. Toss the air fresheners, dryer sheets and any synthetic fragrances. These household chemicals may include carcinogens, such as formaldehyde in air fresheners, irritate the skin and cause respiratory problems.
4. Green the Poop. Instead of using a plastic bag and having your dog’s doo-doo live on forever in the bottom of a landfill, use a biodegradable bag and compost it! As long as you don’t use your compost for your veggie garden you can toss your bio-bag into the compost instead of the trash can. For your feline avoid clay/clumping clay litter and go for eco-friendly cat litters. The clay sediment contains silica dust, a carcinogenic that can coat the lungs of your cat. . Through chronic ingestion of the sodium bentonite added to clay litters as a clumping agent, your cat could be poisoned just by the act of grooming herself/himself. Clay litters don’t biodegrade or break down. Green clay litters are made from natural products such as wheat, corn, wood pellets (compressed sawdust), newspaper or pine. They all biodegrade and can be composted.
5. Keep your cats indoors. Outdoor cats can have a negative impact on the ecosystem. Domestic and feral cats kill hundreds of millions of songbirds and other birds per year. They also compete with local wildlife that prey on birds and small mammals. In addition, outdoor cats are at risk of being injured or killed by cars, other animals or disease, or being poisoned by antifreeze or other toxic substances.
6. Use non-plastic. Stainless steel, ceramic or glass are all good green options for food and water bowls. Chemicals in plastic pose a health risk to your pets and you. Plastic bowls have the risk of exposing your pet to bisphenol-a (BPAs), a chemical used in polycarbonate plastic utilized in plastic food and beverage containers and in resin linings for cans. BPAs can leach harmful chemicals. You can recognize plastic with BPAs by the No. 7 recycling label. Also, avoid plastics numbered 3 (polyvinyl chloride, PVC) and 6 (polystyrene), as they can leach harmful chemicals, too. Avoid brightly coloured toys made from PVC or other toxic materials. Buy fewer but healthier toys; those made from organic cotton, hemp, recycled fleece and rubber. Look for toys that are non-toxic, recyclable and durable. Avoid brightly coloured toys made from PVC or other toxic materials.
7. Spay and neuter your pets. This prevents the stray cat population, and the untold unwanted pets that end up in shelters. There are also health benefits associated with paying and neutering your pet: it can prolong their life span by reducing the risk of some cancers and eliminating others.
Caring for your pet in an eco friendly way ensures your precious companion animal(s) will be healthier and safer and will also be of benefit to you and the environment.
Excellent tips! We have used a natural dog food called Orjen for a few years now and love it. A few years ago my husband found a doggy doo compost system and we have used it daily.
Thanks for your feedback, Tara. I’m familiar with the brand Orjen; it’s high quality and I would recommend it. I used if for my cats for a while. The poop compost systems work pretty well. I use the green cone and compost my cat litter, so it’s recycled back to the Earth, a close loop.
Hi,
Very interesting article. I agree with all but one item in it! I do not think that cats should be kept indoors all their lives. this is unnatural for them, and if people live where there are busy roads etc., then they should probably not choose to live with a cat. A major consideration in our choice of where to live was the proximity to roads. We keep them in at night, we avoid letting them out when there are fledgling birds around in spring, but I think it would be very unkind, even cruel, to keep them in all the time. if you have a cat, it will express it’s cat-ness.
Thanks, Vanessa, for your comment. I know it seems cruel to keep cats indoors all their lives, as we want them to explore the outdoors and enjoy their surroundings. However, I believe, there’s great risk to the cats in doing that, particularly in an urban environment. They are exposed to traffic, dog attacks, cat fights, antifreeze and other toxins, being lost, harmed by people, etc. Is keeping domesticated cats indoors unnatural? I would disagree. We are not dealing with wild animals, which we have removed from their natural habitat. We are dealing with domesticated cats. Another consideration is the ecological impact cats have on bird populations. http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf. If you provide a stimulating indoor environment for your cats, they will be fine and safe! A safe option to allow your cats to get fresh air and be outdoors without the dangers of being outside is building or buying a ‘catarium’ or outdoor enclosure.
Some very good tips,thanks for sharing.
With regards to keeping cats indoors, i have built a run that allows our three cats to get out into the fresh air via our bedroom window (ground floor), The run was built from wood taken from a local recycling station, making it very cheap to construct.
A tip you didn’t mention is the CatBib, a simple device that stops most cats from catching birds. Recommended by Audubon too. Many cats don’t hunt, why should they be imprisoned for their entire lives? Outdoors is not safe for “man nor beast”. Your suggestion of a cat enclosure is helpful, but expensive.
Thanks for pointing the CatBib. I didn’t know about it. You are correct, many cats don’t hunt birds, but those who do, have quite an ecological impact on the bird population. Another factor to consider is the risks various risks outdoor cats face: dog attacks, antifreeze ingestion, being run down/killed by cars, malicious acts from people, etc. Again, I don’t feel one “imprisons” cats by keeping them indoors. The key is in providing a stimulating indoor home environment. If you are keen on letting your cat go outdoors, I would suggest using a leash/harness and take for walks, just as one does with a dog. Having a cat enclosure doesn’t have to be expensive if you build your own. I’ve seen one built from PVC pipes as the frame, and heavy duty plastic netting as the walls; others from recycled wood.
Thanks, Garry, for your feedback. Actually, I have a cat run very similar to yours. My cats access it via my bedroom window on the ground floor, a lot the wood is recycled and the wire mesh was inexpensive. Overall, an inexpensive project that provides that “outdoor” safe environment.
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