Finds: A “Pet Safe” Ice Melter
By Chuck Cage
Most people use salt (or even more chemically active salt-based compounds) to clear sidewalks and outside stairs around the house after a storm. But if you have pets — especially dogs — the use of ice melters can prove problematic as pets often eat snow or lick their paws, ingesting the salt of poisonous chemicals leading to sores and digestive issues. Safe Paw offers a salt-free alternative that they claim is “100% pet and child safe.”
And they offer the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) to prove it.
This sounds like a great idea to me, and it’s available cheaply from a variety of vendors in 8 lb. containers starting around $15. Check out their website for lots more information.
Safe Paw Ice Melter [Corporate Site]
Street Pricing [Froogle]
January 13th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Unless Fido suffers from hypertension, plain old rock salt would seem to be a fine idea. It’s cheaper too, and if the temperature’s too low for it to work, the gritty texture still offers some grip, unlike the little ball-bearing pellets that the exothermic melters seem to come in.
January 14th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Virtual treasure hunts for tool junkies
Which leads me to ToolMonger. If you’re at all interested in working with your hands around the house, or in a personal or professional shop, you’ll love this site. They post “tool finds” multiple times a day, many direct from other readers. They a…
January 26th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Plain old rock salt is also caustic to Fido’s feet. I had to get boots for my pup so he can walk on a salted driveway. He started limping and whimpering after walking on it for only a minute.
December 8th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Plain old rock salt will burn the pads on Fido’s and Ms Kiitty’s feet. The only safe way to use rock salt is like Georgia says with boots. In addition if they lick the salt off their feet it can cause some serious gastric disturbances, even death in some extreme cases. Don’t be cheap — get pet friendly ice melter that does not contain salt. In addition to Safe Paws there is also a new one out called K-9 Pet-Friendly Ice Melt which is abt half the price that works fine. You can get it at Menard’s.
December 18th, 2007 at 10:39 am
How exactly is this safe for pets? If they lick it off their paws they will ingest (according to the Material Safety Data Sheet) a
substrate of urea with a coating of ethylene glycol
which, though I’m no expert, sounds toxic to me.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Er, where did you see that on the MSDS? It says nothing whatsoever about ethylene glycol (aka antifreeze) or urea. Certainly not in the “ingestion” area which simply states “May cause stomach irritation and upset. If persists seek medical attention.”
Note the section II: Hazards which contains “none”.
Compare this to the MSDS for ethylene glycol: http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/e5125.htm which is rather explicit about the dangers of ingestion.
If SafePaw actually does contain ethylene glycol (they state “glycols” but aren’t specific about which ones) then they’d have a rather nasty lawsuit on their hands. (And yes, SafePaw also contains “amides” — of which urea is one; but apparently it’s not urea but some other amide).
September 17th, 2008 at 10:08 am
There is a product I use called ProMelt that uses an organic accelerator on their product. I’ve never had any problems with my dogs over the last two winters. I got mine at Fareway in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The web link to it is http://www.secorspecialty.com
October 19th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I was just reading this from another page. Don’t always believe what you read, but important to check out.
http://www.ossian.com/petsafe_doc.htm