Your pets vs your lawn care

Dogs and cats eat grass, roll in it and walk on it. The pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that you put on your yard directly enter our pets' systems by ingestion and by collect on feet and fur and being absorbed through skin or liked off. Our animals' noses and mouths are also closer to the ground than ours, and thus are in closer proximity for breathing the chemicals, These toxins are dangerous and can have an adverse effect not only on them, but also on us when they track those chemicals into our homes or we are petting them. For example 2-4D can cause cancer among other negative side effects, and can be fatal to fish and fowl. 2-4D made up 50% of Agent Orange used in Vietnam. Is it really something you want to put on your yard? Is it really something you want your pets, your children or you to be in contact with?

Popular products containing 2-4D include (From Natural Awakenings Magazine, June 2018):

Bayer Advanced All-in-One Lawn Weed and Crabgrass Killer

Ortho Weed-B-Gon Max

Scotts Liquid Turf Builder

Scotts Snap Pac Weed & Feed

Sta-Green Phosphorus-Free Weed & Feed

But by mentioning this specific chemical and some specific products in which it can be found, I am not trying to encourage you to find an alternate chemical. I would like to impress on you the importance of NOT treating your lawn with ANY chemicals--pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. All of them directly effect our health, and eventually make their way not only into our streams and oceans, killing aquatic life, but also into our water tables from which we drink and bathe. You can continue having people mow your yard, just make sure they don't do any chemical treatments. If you keep grass short enough it is still green and you can't tell what is growing there--it just looks like nice grass. It is also cheaper for you to not spend money on lawn chemicals. It is a win-win. Cheaper, mowed grass is pretty, and no toxicity for your loved ones or the environment. Think about it.