Pet Warning

I am crossposting this. Please use your own judgement. I have used mine, and will no longer buy this product.

This is a Cross Post

I recently had a neighbor who had to have their 5-year old German
Shepherd dog put down due to liver failure. The dog was completely
healthy until a few weeks ago, so they had a necropsy done to see
what the cause was. The liver levels were unbelievable, as if the
dog had ingested poison of some kind. The dog is kept inside, and
when he's outside, someone's with him, so the idea of him getting
into something unknown was hard to believe. My neighbor started
going through all the items in the house. When he got to the
Swiffer Wetjet, he noticed, in very tiny print, a warning which
stated "may be harmful to small children and animals." He called
the company to ask what the contents of the cleaning agent are and
was astounded to find out that anitfreeze is one of the
ingredients. (actually he was told it's a compound which is one
molecule away from anitfreeze). Therefore, just by the dog walking
on the floor cleaned with the solution, then licking it's own paws,
and the dog eating from its dishes which were kept on the kitchen
floor cleaned with this product, it ingested enough of the solution
to destroy its liver. Soon after his dog's death, his housekeepers'
two cats also died of liver failure. They both used the Swiffer
Wetjet for quick cleanups on their floors. Necropsies weren't done
on the cats, so they couldn't file a lawsuit, but he asked that we
spread the word to as many people as possible so they don't lose
their animals.

 

HOLY CRAP!! I have this product. I have only used it once, and now I won't be using it again. So scary!!! Good thing I am such a poor housecleaner that I rarely clean my floors.

I hope this is pursued so the company can change the formulation before more animals die.


Jamiya

 

I think they emailed them and this was the reply:

Question
Is Swiffer safe for animals? What if my pet licks the floor?

Answer
Great news for you and your pets! Swiffer Wet and Swiffer WetJet are specially designed to not leave a residue on the floor, so there's no need to rinse. We suggest you make sure the floor is completely dry before letting your pet walk on it, though, because wet floors can be slippery. Since there isn't a residue, there are no problems if your pet licks the floor.

No more worrying about the owner of those muddy paw prints. You can enjoy the convenience of our Swiffer products without any worries for your pet's safety.

I still dont; know if I would trust it though. Better safe than sorry.

 

Yep. I think I will wait for more research and answers from an unbiased source. If none is forthcoming, I will use a different product. There is this cool product called "water" that cleans pretty darn well!


Jamiya

 

this is also going around another dog board I go to and it's being labeled another Urban Legend....like they did with Febreeze awhile ago.

 

The words that first came out of my mouth after reading this, obviously I can't write that here, but I'm sure you know what they were.

I use tis product almost daily!!!

I'm stoping now. Smokey has gotten this raspy caugh that we can't explain..... I hope it has nothing to do with it!

 

Hopefully it is an urban legend, but I will wait for confirmation just the same.


Jamiya

 

Jamiya:
What a resourceful answer. Water hey? hmm... I will definately have to look into that one.
I hope its cost effective aswell. :lol:

 

Usually when i get an email like this, the first place i go is Snopes


its a website where they investigate urban legends, and the like (such as emails like these)

doing a search with the term "swiffer" brought me to this:

http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/swiffer.asp

after reading it, and the links contained within, I'm lead to believe that the swiffer is safe for pets, and that email is a hoax.


and off the topic, that website is fun to read thru, finding out the history of some common urban legends...quite a few times, ive read about stuff i could have sworn was true!

 

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/b ... wetjet.htm

I dont think it is harmful....but better safe then sorry!

 

:lol:

If it's a hoax or not it does make you look closely at what you're using around the house just to make sure. I know I've just picked cleaning products up and not checked the label before and I bet everyone has at one time or another. There are certain things you expect to be harmful but I wouldn't have thought a household floor cleaner would've been one of them.

I learned about Anti-freeze from this site and quicky took the can from out the back of the car. It was just rolling around on the floor in the back but Floob sits in the back so I threw it in the boot, just in case.

Whatever did we do before we had the internet to teach us eh :wink:

 

ok i dont know how long ago this product came out but when it first came out i used it alot and I quit useing it because it got kind of expensive to buy those little pads all the time. BUT my Nala had gotten this problem with her liver and we had been fighting it for 3-4 years and as you all know i lost her the end of March well this has me wondering because i also lost a cat 2 years ago and she died very suddenly and i'm not sure what happened to her she was only 6 years old I went to the snow for the weekend and my neice came and fed my cats while i was gone when i came home sassy was under my air hockey table when i went to pet her i thought she was dead already but she wasnt i took her to the vet and there was nothing they could do for her i have always wondered she never showed any signs of being sick my neice said she seemed fine when she came to feed her.

Well i will NEVER use that product again and i would love to know the out come of that research i will have to keep an eye on it

 

My god, You think your doing the right thing and this happens. Gosh I have to send this to my sisters. Thank you for cross posting.

 

Well, I know for a fact that some cleaning products can be toxic. Four years ago I shampooed my carpets with the Rug Doctor using their cleaning solution. My cat Buddy was walking on the carpet before it dried. Of course cats with wet paws will lick them. Later in the day he started vomitting and screaming in distressed. It was a Saturday, naturally. We ran him to Banfield and ask us to bring the bottle of cleaner with us. We called Poison control and Rug Doctors corporate office. We were informed by the company that there was nothing toxic in their product. In the mean time my cat was totally crashing. Banfield gave him a dose of antihistamine and said we should take him to the emergency clinic, there was nothing they could do. On the way there, Buddy's head fell back and his eyes rolled in the back of his head. I just knew he died in my arms. We got to emergency, they take him into the back, and we sat there for an hour and a half. Finally the Doctor came out and said Buddy had come around. He had an alergic reaction to what is in the Rud Doctor soap. If Banfield hadn't have given him the antihistamine, he would have probably died. I got rid of my carpet and put in ceramic tile all through my house. I clean with white vinegar an water.

 

Oh gosh! that's really bad.. I hvnt tried the product yet and i dun think I ever will :? Anyway, I cleaned it with vinegar and water.. sometimes I clean the floor with Dettol solution.. Is that harmful??

 

I wonder if I can somehow refill the Swiffer bottle with water and vinegar. I like the product because of the ease of use and no bucket, not because of the chemicals.

We actually don't have many cleaning products in the house. We just use water most of the time. If I'm cleaning grease off the stove, I use a little soap as well.

I also have some sort of citrus cleaner that they sell door-to-door. You dilute it to whatever strength you want for what you are doing. Supposedly you can actually spray it on your animal to clean it, but I wouldn't do that! It was funny when the guy selling it came back about 2 years later. He said we'd definitely need more soon and I showed him the bottle - 3/4 full. Okay, so I don't clean very often.


Jamiya

 

Ok....I'm not a clean freek, but I do keep my place as tip top as possible. Especialy with dogs and puppies all ways showing up in various stages of health. I stopped using my Swiffer, cuz i usually use it daily, and smokey has stopped caughing!!!! I think He was illergic to it. (we let them sleep on the back porch at night, and thats where I swiffer the most!) THey don't come into the main house. TOO DIRTY of DOGS!!!!!

I think there is some truth, that the stuff is toxic to dogs, but I think it also verries in degrees of sensitivity between animals. Overall it may not be harmful to most pets, but to some more seceptable to sensitivity to chemicals it effects.

Like you Jamiya, I hardly use anything other than a little dawn and water. But that swiffer is just great!. I baught the duster thing f or my china cabnets and fans. And oh the wonders it does!

Trust me for those of you who live out in the Texas country. You can dust and five minutes later it looks just the same as it did before you started!!!!

 

That sounds like a reason to not dust at all! :wink:


Jamiya