Too much salt in your pet's system can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, trembling, seizures, erratic walking behavior, disorientation, extreme tiredness, an unnaturally intense thirst, or unusual drooling or salivating. Both for dogs and cats, ingestion or rock salt in significant amounts can be dangerous or even deadly. Or, your pet may simply stop to drink water mixed with rock salt or even eat or lick deposits of rock salt directly. Once your pet walks on rock salt, he/she may well stop to lick his/her paws and thus ingest the salt.
You may also consider investing in "booties" to protect pet paws from salts, and you can take your dog out to a non-salted area when it’s time instead of just letting him/her loose to go out alone. If the breed has long hair, you should trim/groom the coat regularly during the winter. You could also lay down walkway, stair or driveway grade snow-melting mats to keep an ice-free zone without resorting to rock salt.Īdditionally, protect your dog/cat during winter by rinsing off his paws when he returns from an excursion outside.
Using a "pet-friendly" deicer, sand mixed with a minimal amount of salt, and simply shoveling, snow blowing, or hiring a snow plow service are ways to deice without rock salt. While rock salt can also attach to fur and cause burns on other parts of your pet's body, the main problem is with the paws. It can also lead to inflammation, redness, soreness, and bacterial infection. When you spread rock salt over your driveway and your pet then walks on the salt, or on a salt-water slush resulting from its melting of the snow/ice, the salt crystals can attach to the animal's paw pads and cause irritation and burning. Being aware of these dangers and how to eliminate, or at least minimize, the risks to your cat or dog from rock salt can save your pet's health or even his/her life.
Rock salt (sodium chloride), as well as many other deicers, pose major hazards to your pets when applied in significant quantities to your driveway and other outdoor pavements.
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