That fall nip in the air can make even parked cars deadly to
cats and
dogs. A University of Georgia
veterinarian
says cooler weather often leads to two fatal attractions for
household
pets.

“As the weather cools, many cats are attracted to the warmth
of the
car’s engine,” said Jim Strickland,
an Extension Service veterinarian
with the UGA College of
Agricultural
and Environmental Sciences.

“If you don’t look out for them, they can still be in there
when you
crank the car,” he said. “And many of them wind up getting into
the fan
belt.”

When that happens, he said, there often isn’t much a
veterinarian can
do to help.

A more common cool-weather problem may be even more deadly.
As winter
nears, many people check, change or add to their car’s
antifreeze. Being
just a little careless in this chore has killed many dogs and
cats, Strickland
said.

“The ethylene glycol in some antifreeze is extremely deadly,”
he said.
“It’s deadly to any mammal. And it’s a fairly common cause of
death in
cats and dogs.”

Many new antifreeze products don’t contain ethylene glycol,
he said.
Those shouldn’t be toxic to pets. “It’s best to be careful,
though, even
when using those products,” he said.

Antifreezes containing ethylene glycol are deadly to cats and
dogs for
three reasons, he said. One, the animals lap it up voluntarily,
even when
water is nearby. Two, it takes only a tiny amount to kill a dog
or cat.
And three, most people don’t know it’s that lethal.

“Cats and dogs seem to like the taste of it,” Strickland
said. “I don’t
know if it has a sweet taste or what, but they naturally go to
it if it’s
around.”

Only one-fourth of an ounce of antifreeze will kill a 10- to
12-pound
cat, he said. Two ounces will kill a 25-pound dog.

“It’s easy to spill that much antifreeze when you first start
to pour
a full container,” Strickland said.

Ethylene glycol affects mostly the kidneys, he said. Dogs and
cats get
severely dehydrated and have below-normal temperatures. They’ll
show weakness
and staggering in their back legs and a sluggishness that leads
into coma
and eventual death.

All that happens in a few hours. So for a veterinarian to
have any chance
to successfully treat the dog or cat, he has to know the animal
has consumed
antifreeze.

“The symptoms are easy to confuse with injury, encephalitis
or an overdose
of a number of drugs,” Strickland said. “And by the time you can
get a
lab analysis done, it’s usually too late to help the animal.”

Not only must the vet know the animal has gotten into
antifreeze, but
it’s also crucial to tell him exactly when it happened,
Strickland said.

“The treatment varies at different stages,” he said. “For the
vet to
really know what to do, he needs to know how long it has been
since the
antifreeze was ingested. The timing is critical.”

If you take an antifreeze-poisoned cat or dog right away to
the vet
and tell him all he needs to know, he may be able to save it,
depending
on how much antifreeze it consumed.

But all the pieces rarely fall together. So only about 20
percent of
the dogs and cats survive.

“The best way to handle it is to be very careful not to let
animals
get to the antifreeze in the first place,” Strickland said.

Taking the extra care and time to wipe up spills or hose down
the place
where the radiator boils over is the easiest, cheapest and most
effective
way to protect your pets from antifreeze poisoning.