MIAMI – Lilies are a beautiful flower we see all the time, but the flower is so toxic to cats, it can shut down their organs and cause them to die in just days.
So why don’t more cat owners know about this extremely dangerous flower?
“I just wanted to pick up flowers just to brighten up the house and make everything pretty,” Azucena Torres, who lost her cat to lilies, told Local 10 News.
Torres was celebrating a new job, Easter and Mother’s Day with the very traditional flower. But the woman, whose name in Spanish means lily, had no idea that exact same flower would turn deadly for her baby boy.
“He was so special -- he wasn’t just a cat or a pet, he was my family,” she said. “We cuddled together every single night, woke up together, ate together. My life revolved around taking care of him.”
But when her cat Thunder jumped on the kitchen counter and ate her lilies, Torres had no idea that anything was wrong until he started showing symptoms days later.
“I found out on the sixth day, so by the time I got to the doctor’s, it was already too late,” she said.
Torres said she rushed him to Veterinary Emergency Group in Miami.
“People don’t know. It’s not common knowledge, and all it takes is having them in your house for your cat to be affected,” Dr. Valentina Henao, of Veterinary Emergency Group, said.
The animal hospital sees so many emergencies related to lilies.
“I would say the most common toxicity that we see in cats is always lilies. I would say 90 percent is a lily toxicity for cats,” Henao said.
Since it is so prevalent, they had to develop a protocol to flush and treat the kidneys. But that’s only if they can catch it within the first 24 to 72 hours.
“It’s very toxic to the kidneys, and so it automatically, right away starts causing your kidneys to go into failure, and by the time that we can pick up that there has been any damage to the kidneys on bloodwork, about 75 percent of the kidneys have already been affected,” Henao said.
Andres Aguilar, of the Kiss my Bloom flower shop, is very familiar with the silent killer.
“People call them funeral flowers,” Aguilar told Local 10 News.
It’s a nickname that is spot on when it comes to cats!
“When people buy flowers, sometimes they let us know to not put lilies in them because they are bad for the cats,” Aguilar said. “The petals, the pistols and the pollen is what is toxic for them, for the kidney.”
Whether you’re ordering from a florist or you’re buying from the grocery store, having the knowledge that these lilies are toxic to your cat will save you because there’s no warning label to help you out here.
“How can we not know? How can we not be aware? How is it possible that I just picked up some flowers at my local grocery, there’s no label on the lilies?” Torres wondered.
“I walk around a grocery store and just really just want to put a warning: please don’t take this home if you have cats!” Henao said.
Torres said she wished she knew about the pollen poison when it came to protecting the cat she calls her soulmate.
“It would have been lovely to know, life changing to know, to have this information, to know it’s common knowledge -- it should be common knowledge,” she said.
Lilies are so toxic to cats that they don’t even have to eat the flowers. Just smelling them, walking near them, having them in the house -- that’s all it takes to get pollen on their paws or fur and affect the kidneys.
And there is no oversight for pets when it comes to this issue. So now you know and you can spread the word -- do not buy lilies if you have cats in your home!
