Owner Suspects Toxic Metals in Fertilizers Killed Her Boston Terrier

After searching for an answer to her dog's health problems, a toxicology report led Jeannie Thompson to believe run-off water full of pesticides caused his seizures and blindness.

"Travis, known as Champion Wyatt’s Dancin Fool in the dog show world, was a wonderful, full of love and life Boston Terrier who came to live with us when he was almost three years old.

Travis LOVED water and could be found in any puddle, the doggy wading pool, and even in our bathtub.

Our back yard meets a very steep hill and wooded area leading to several homes above us. The run off from their yards and the street comes down the hill, overflowing a large ditch. Travis couldn't help it; he just couldn't stay out of the muddy water! He would gulp it up, roll in it, lie in it, and pull himself around on his belly in the water.

That late summer, early fall, Travis came in from playing outside and began to act very strangely. He went into a long, hard seizure and proceeded to have two more in the night. At the vet’s office in the morning, none of the potential causes seemed possible. They gave Travis a small injection of Valium and Phenobarbital, but about 5 minutes later he began seizing again. They had to put him under general anesthesia to get his body and brain to relax long enough to stop seizing. This was not normal. They ran all kinds of blood and lab work on Travis and came up with nothing. I had asked them to run a toxicology screen on him and check for toxic chemicals or heavy metals but I found out later they never did. With shrug of the shoulders, he was sent home on Phenobarbital pills .

Travis did better for a couple of weeks, but then began to have seizures while on the Phenobarbital. He went blind and began to walk in circles He never walked in a straight line again.

I found a fantastic naturopathic veterinarian (Dr. T. D. Hubbard), who suggested we do a screen for heavy metals in his body. It came back devastating!

Travis had extremely high, toxic levels of aluminum, arsenic, zinc and lead while being over the normal level in most all the metals. After talking at great length to Dr. Hubbard and doing a lot of research, we came to the conclusion that Travis had absorbed and ingested the heavy metals from toxic chemicals present in the run off water in the yard. They had accumulated over the year he had lived with us.

He was far too weak and sick for chelation therapy. In great sorrow, we decided to put Travis to rest and give him some peace.Who would have ever thought that their beloved dog, innocently playing in the muddy water, was killing himself? "

When Jeannie did her research about toxic metals and health problems, she looked at this study by US PIRG. Did you know twenty-nine tested fertilizers contained twenty-two toxic heavy metals?

These metals are linked to either ecological or human health hazards. Most noticeable is the wide array of toxic metals that exist in fertilizer:

Metal Tested Number of Fertilizers Containing the Metal
Aluminum (Al) 29
Antimony (Sb) 29
Arsenic (As) 29
Barium (Ba) 29
Berylium (Be) 29
Boron (B) 29
Cadmium (Cd) 29
Chromium (Cr) 29
Cobalt (Co) 29
Copper (Cu) 29
Iron (Fe) 29
Lead (Pb) 29
Manganese (Mn) 29
Mercury (Hg) 29
Molybdenum (Mo) 29
Nickel (Ni) 29
Selenium (Se) 29
Silver (Ag) 29
Thallium (Tl) 29
Vanadium (V) 29
Uranium (U) 29
Zinc (Zn) 29

For more information regarding fertilizer toxicology, you can read the official study at:

http://www.pirg.org/toxics/reports/wastelands/