Is homemade slime or goop poisonous to my dog? | Dr. Justine Lee, DACVECC, DABT, Board-certified Veterinary Specialist
Did your dog just eat homemade slime or goop?
Before you make that homemade slime for your children, make sure you know about the potential poisoning dangers to your dog! While you would never be enticed to eat that slime, your dog may find it tasty and intriguing!
Recently, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center had a case where a dog died after ingesting homemade slime.
While this is really rare, you do have to be careful with small dogs and cats. So what exactly is in homemade slime?
- Warm water
- White glue
- Borax
- Food coloring
Sometimes, it also contains:
- Shaving cream
- Starch
- Glitter
Most of the time, these ingredients are rarely poisonous to small dogs and cats. However, a few other random ingredients that are added in can result in severe signs of poisoning, depending on how much is ingested. The more dangerous slime ingredients include:
- Laundry detergent
- Salt
- Borax
The most dangerous is when you add in laundry detergent. If your dog or cat vomits, it can cause severe aspiration pneumonitis, which can cause difficulty breathing, coughing, fever, not eating, and potential lung failure (e.g., acute respiratory distress syndrome). While this is rare, you don’t want to include this in your homemade slime or goop!
Next, salt. This is also found in homemade play dough or salt holiday dough ornaments. While we eat salt all the time in food, excessive amounts (which are found in these homemade products) can cause a life-threateningly high sodium, and causes signs of vomiting, excessive thirst, lethargy, walking drunk, tremors, head pressing, seizures, and even death.
Lastly, borax. Thankfully, this one just results in less severe signs such as vomiting and diarrhea, but at HIGH doses, it can rarely cause acute kidney injury or failure!
When in doubt, keep your child’s homemade slime or goop out of reach of your pets! If you think your dog (or rarely, cat), got into it, contact your veterinarian, emergency veterinarian, or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center immediately for life-saving care! The sooner you seek treatment, the less dangerous to your pet and the less expensive to your wallet!
Photo credit StevenDepolo // cc Flickr
can i give her water to help i did
When in doubt, I would contact your vet Marion or the ASPCA. Small amounts of water likely OK.
What a great post. Thanks for sharing this post!
My puppy (11 months) ate slime with glue borax and water please help me save him
I would contact the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center for assistance. It can cause vomiting but generally isn’t too toxic, but still best to check!
My dog only eat a small amount of slime will he get poisoned
How much is too much borax? My dog was digging in the trash and might’ve eaten something. Thank you!
Usually dogs will vomit when they get into borax. So it’s the dose that makes the poison. If your dog isn’t vomiting, it’s less likely he got into a “toxic” amount of borax. However, there are other dangers in the trash so be careful!
What if my dog is a border collie And she ate a little slime
A lot of a little? I would contact the ASPCA Animal Poison Control center to be safe as they can help you induce vomiting.
What is my dog ate the whole slime though it was a little one on the breed is border collie
what if you dont know if it ate it can you just give it lots of water
I wouldn’t force anything and would just monitor your dog – but if you’re worried, please call ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center!
My Dog Ate Slime it has Glue foam peace’s and borax can you please respond Back as soon as possible. I don’t Want anything to happen to her it was a small amount but still.
As the blog states, it’s likely to cause gastroenteritis and stomach upset but to be safe, please call the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center to be safe!
My 4 month old toy poodle puppy ate cloud slime, which has fake snow lotion glue and borax she ate like a teaspoon or less. Will she be ok? Or should I call my vet or animal poison control? I’m extremely worried because I would hate for anything to happen to her, please respond quickly.
Thank you so much and I hope not to waste your time I just don’t want anything to happen to her.
I’d call ASPCA APCC to be safe as your dog is so small and young.
I spilled some slime activator which is water and dissolved borax onto my carpet. My puppy licked it for like 5 seconds but I’m still worried. Should I be contacting my vet?
I don’t know if you would know the answer, but my prairie dog might have ate a tiny tiny tiny bit of slime, and I don’t know what to do. The slime accidentally fell into his food dish and when I got back it was burried and he had slime on his behind. I don’t know if he ingested it but I would like to know the best kind of response in case he did. If you would, could you please respond ASAP. Thank you.
My dog ate a small bite with glue lotion and glitter help
My kid threw slime, we couldn’t find it and I’m scared my dog will eat it. It doesn’t contain borax and isn’t very much but I’m still worried. She is a small dog, toy fox terrier.
My 3 months old dog accidentally ate a small piece of a slime I tried to take it from her mouth but it’s too late she already swallowed it pls help me idk what to do?!….
my 3-month-old boxer puppy ate some cloud putty by silly putty and it says non-toxic and safe on the box but I don’t know if that counts for her, please help
Comment * My dog ate homemade slime with activator, shaving cream, and glue in it, I did some digging and those items individually are fixable from the house if I’m careful enough, but idk about full slime, I also don’t know how to explain to my parents (I live with them still)