On 4/16/2014 sue52 said: I think the negative and cruel comments on this thread are unnecessary. Thank you, Jeremiah 2911, for your kindness in posting some info pet owners may not be aware of.
I'm not so sure the "negative and cruel comments" are really negative and cruel so much as a way of trying to keep things in perspective. We live in a world where danger is over-hyped to a point that pretty much everything is dangerous, deadly and likely to kill you, your children, or your pets if you let down your guard for even a second.
I've had pets for decades and they've all been around "deadly" plants (brugmansias, lilies, daffodils, etc.) most of their lives and not one cat (or other pet) has ever gotten sick, or died as a result of sharing the house/yard with those plants. I always keep a pot of oat grass actively growing for the cats to munch on and they pretty much ignore all of the rest of the plants.
The title of this thread "Lilies kill cats!" makes it sound like lilies are out actively hunting down cats and striking them down by the score. That's not really the case. A local greenhouse that grows lilies commercially has a pet cat who lives among lilies, poinsettias, and all of the rest of their plants and he's been there forever. (Officially he's in charge of controlling mice, but that would require him to move off of the nice sunny and warm concrete greenhouse floor that he's usually sleeping on when he's not rubbing against customer's legs to get a head rub.)
Is there some theoretical danger that a starving cat could ingest enough of a toxic plant to kill it? Sure. Is it common? No. I'd be willing to bet far more cats die from alcohol poisoning from lapping up leftover/untended alcoholic drinks than die from lilies or any other of the many "dangerous" plants that alarms are sounded about. WebMD has a list of the top ten poisons for dogs and plants come in eighth out of ten on their list. The big three plants they mention are: azaleas/rhododendrums, tulips/daffodils, and sago palm seeds.
You can argue everyone should limit the risk as much as possible, but it pays to keep some perspective on the risk. There are too many journalists and advocates out there screaming that "the sky is falling" over everything. In my experience the risk of keeping "dangerous/deadly" plants is very, very low. In my personal experience it's absolutely non-existent. None of my pets in over fifty five years have ever gotten sick from eating a "dangerous/deadly" plant despite literally hundreds of them in my home/yard. If you're still more comfortable throwing away a perfectly good lily plant, then so be it, but the real world risk to your pets is extremely slim.
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