Animal Poison by ASPCA 12+

I got this when the Pet Poison Control app was discontinued. What a sad replacement. It’s alphabetized by scientific name, though you can search by common name. But the entries are incomplete both in items listed and symptoms to watch for.

Example: the green parts of tomato plants are toxic to dogs, as are onions. Neither of these are listed in the app at all. Garlic is listed under plants rather than food.

And several entries are noted as ‘severely toxic’ but the symptoms fail to mention symptoms like coma and death.

Finally, the app I used to use (which was sadly discontinued) described the item and what about that item was toxic so that pet owners could better understand what problems may occur - for example the stems and leaves of tomatoes contain a toxin called .... which causes .... when ingested’ or apples ‘the flesh and skin of apples are safe for dogs to eat, but the seeds contain .... which can cause .... symptoms and so the core of the apple should be discarded’

The ASPCA app is woefully incomplete in this regard. I shall keep searching for a better app.

Simple to use, precise and to the point information. People complain about the categories and the fact that items are listed under scientific names, but they seem to have overlooked the fact that the app also has a search function that works very well, so that you don’t have to scroll through categories. If your search is not returning a result, simply google the product in question to see if there is an alternate name. I was able to search garlic, vitamin b, oxycodone, and phenylephrine with no difficulty. When Sudafed didn’t return a result, I googled Sudafed and punched pseudoephedrine (the active ingredient) into the app instead, which gave me the result I was looking for.

This app will neither diagnose your pet’s symptoms nor tell you if what/how much your pet ingested WILL cause a problem- an app cannot practice veterinary medicine. However, this app is a good first step to determine whether you should seek additional assistance. In order to properly utilize the tool and appreciate it, it’s helpful to understand its purpose.

As others have pointed out, most everything is classified by scientific names. It would be helpful to have an index of common names.

More importantly, there’s no ability to search by symptom rather than specific poisons. Pet owners are likely to know there’s a problem in advance of knowing what caused the problem, so why not have the option to start here? There should at least be enough to help establish a possible triage priority, or the app should urge pet owners to call the vet immediately if they don’t know the source of the problem and the symptom may point to a severe problem.

The app is a promising resource. I’m eager to see how it develops, and I’ll gladly raise my rating as it does!