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Show HN: Is It Toxic To? – Check if a plant is toxic to your pets
All information is from the ASPCA's list of toxic plants (https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/toxic-a...)
- catlover76 3y agoAwesome Thanks for building this
- ksaj 3y agoThis is great. But I don't understand the result you get for things like 'peanut'. I'm assuming it means peanuts aren't regarded as toxic to dogs, cats and horses, but the result under the input section seems so random.
- itsnotchester 3y agoah this isn't a list of all plants, just the ones that are toxic to either cats, dogs or horses
- schleck8 3y agoChester has one of the coolest personal websites by the way https://chester.how https://chester.how
- itsnotchester 3y agohey thanks for sharing! :)
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- downboots 3y agoLove practical catalogs like these. Another I've thought of is what to glue with what.
- lbourdages 3y agoIf I may make a comment about the search experience on the website... I searched for "onion" because I knew it was toxic to cats and dogs. I had to scroll down to find it. IMO, if there is an exact match, it should bypass the sort order and be promoted straight to the top. Otherwise, pretty cool! I think it will be very useful.
- Merad 3y agoThe search algorithm does seem to be a bit wonky. Searching for "aloe", for example, returns about 20 results most of which don't seem to have any relation at all to aloe, e.g. calamondin orange or rock moss.
- captn3m0 3y agoThis needs an easy to remember URL as well.
- _jplc 3y agoI think the important question here is “what’s dangerous for my pet to eat”, regardless if it’s a plant, a plant-based product, or any other thing. Adding stuff like plain old “sugar” would be useful. Also, aren’t grapes bad for dogs? By searching “grape” there are many results that, without something like a photo or a link to Wikipedia, makes it hard to know if that’s the thing I’m looking for. I don’t know the botanical family of a grape.
- jarofgreen 3y agoThe original home of the content may have more on this (but it crashes my phone browser so I can't check): https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control
- joecool1029 3y ago> Also, aren’t grapes bad for dogs? Yeah, it's the tartaric acid and cream of tartar (which can be used to make homemade playdough) that is toxic to dogs, grape juice won't harm a dog but whole grapes will cause kidney damage. Tamarinds apparently also high in tartaric acid. Article on it: https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/258/7/javma.258.7.704.xml?tab_body=pdf https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/258/7/javm...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- withinboredom 3y agoAlso, a note at the top along the lines: "cats are obligate carnivores. They can't eat plants." would be a good notice. Basically, if your cat is eating a plant, it's going to be sick (or is eating them because they are sick).
- tomjakubowski 3y agocats eat grass to stay healthy https://www.science.org/content/article/mystery-solved-why-cats-eat-grass https://www.science.org/content/article/mystery-solved-why-c...
- withinboredom 3y agoI have never seen a cat not throw up after eating a plant.
- shepherdjerred 3y agoMy cat doesn't, although it usually eats very small amounts
- vjk800 3y agoI thought throwing up was sort of normal for cats. That's how they get excess fur out of their stomach if they ingest too much while licking themselves.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- schleck8 3y agoCats eat things in the garden all the time, especially grass as the other person mentioned. I see my cats do that frequently
- ajb 3y agoThe normal reasons for a cat to be ingest plant matter are: - because you mixed it with something they do eat. For example, onions in gravy. Onions are very toxic to cats but they are unlikely to eat a raw one. A nice beef or chicken gravy however, is much more palatable. - because extracts are dissolved in a liquid, and the cat gets that on their fur, which they then lick. Example: Aloe Vera scent spray.
- withinboredom 3y agoPhotos of the plants could be useful. My wife said a plant was X or Y, but then we had to google X and Y to see which one it really was.
- appplication 3y agoAs someone with a dog who has been to the ER many times for accidental ingestion, I appreciate this. That said, one thing I have learned is toxicity is very much a sliding scale. Some plants are toxic in the sense that they will make your pet mild/moderately sick. Others are life threatening. It’s probably not information you could easily add. But having access to information that differentiates between toxic meaning diarrhea vs toxic meaning likely fatal would be incredible useful to dog owners. Of course this is also likely dose/body weight relative as well. Similarly, there is also a lot of misinformation out in social media and random blogs about toxicity. There are many common houseplants that your pet probably shouldn’t eat, but only a few are actually alarming if they do. We’ve learned just because you can find something at the top of Google doesn’t make it true, and for some reason plant toxicity is really subject to a lot of misinformation.
- itsnotchester 3y agoall information is from the ASPCA's website. as i'm not an animal healthcare professional, i'm refraining from adding any additional information myself. that said, the "Clinical signs" section of each item might give u a little more information about how toxic the plant is
- w0z_ 3y agoNot hot dog.
- symlinkk 3y agoSo you just stole their content and put it behind a flashy UI?
- jarofgreen 3y agoThe original content has a big "Donate" button, which is now gone.
- itsnotchester 3y agoeach item has a link back to its own page on ASPCA site, but yeah sure call it stealing
- Sommer 3y agoThis is something that works remarkably well with GPT-4V. Take a picture of plants, flowers, foods, and ask if anything in this photo is toxic to dogs. I tested it on a bouquet of flowers and 100% correctly identified each flower and it's potential toxicity. Results may vary, please verify before feeding anything to your good boi.
- donatj 3y agoA number of years ago my dad's dog got really sick and died after eating a rutabaga. The vet told us it was toxic to dogs, but it seems to not be listed in this and in my googling just now after not seeing it, I find that it's generally regarded "a safe healthy treat for dogs"... I'm curious if the Internet is wrong or if maybe the vet was wrong and my dad's dog may have just had some sort of allergy
- jstarfish 3y agoRemember that toxicity is relative. You can (and do) eat arsenic and cyanide in your everyday life. You will only die if you eat n amount of it. Lots of plants are apparently toxic for dogs. Garlic, onions, etc. But whereas your poodle might die from one bite, my fat seal of a husky would have to eat an entire clove, or a bag of them. I freaked out when she ate a chocolate bar but she was fine...no incident at all. Small dogs are most at risk for obvious reasons.
- ksaj 3y agoThis is a valuable thing to point out. Garlic is toxic to dogs, but a lot of dog treats have garlic and it's not hurting them. In large amounts, it is toxic. But it is stinky even in small amounts, and that's what dogs love about garlic. Dosage matters.
- Syzygies 3y agoThe guidance is simplistic. If you spot an item of potential concern, research it further. One plant I've researched for my puppy is Morning Glory. First, one needs to clarify leaves? flowers? seeds? And there are many varieties of vine called "Morning Glory", both annual and perennial. Those of us of a certain age learned in high school to recite the specific varieties of annual morning glories whose seeds contained lysergic acid amide, offering the shortest path to synthesizing lysergic acid diethylamide, aka LSD. I recall Heavenly Blue and Pearly Gates. Other varieties are of less interest. (I was banned from my high school chem lab, but not for LSD. A friend's brother researched short-acting hallucinogens too obscure to make illegal, and picked a relatively safe synthesis for us. He forgot to mention it would coat the lab in a white precipitate.) That would be the morning glory described in the sketchy entry here. Yes, err on the side of caution, if convenient. If one has spent twenty years cultivating a shade wall of perennial morning glory, and the puppy chews the occasional leaf without swallowing, there's no cause to rip it all out.
- amluto 3y agoWhat was the precipitate? In high school chemistry, one is the labs involved ammonia and fairly concentrated HCl at the same time. The teacher carefully protected or removed every item he cared about in the entire room first. Fortunately, NH4Cl is not especially dangerous, although I can’t imagine that inhaling it is a great idea.
- KomoD 3y agoCatnip is toxic?
- tumsfestival 3y agoI'm also surprised by this. If it's toxic, why the hell do we give cats that and why is it in so many toys?
- itsnotchester 3y agoi was surprised by that too! but if i'm not wrong it's relatively okay in small doses, but large amounts can cause mild discomfort like vomiting and stuff
- Zetaphor 3y agoThis is somewhat misleading and inaccurate. I searched for apples and it tells me it's toxic to all animals. Apple _seeds_ are toxic, but apples are a healthy treat for dogs. A single search yields a lot more useful and detailed explanations of both the risk and acceptable parts of an apple than this interface.
- deadbeeves 3y agoIt's actually not apple seeds by themselves. Apple seeds will pass through the digestive tract intact. However, the seeds contain amygdalin inside them, which will react into cyanide in the stomach. So what's toxic is chewing and then swallowing apple seeds. Peach seeds also contain amygdalin, although you're much less likely to try to eat one of those.