This Is Why You Should Never Put Hair Dye on Your Animal Companions
A viral Facebook post is showing the world the serious and potentially life-threatening danger of using human hair dyes on nonhuman animals. It details the story of Violet, a dog who sustained severe burns all over her body after someone attempted to dye her fur purple with a product intended for human hair. When veterinarians attempted to shave off her fur to assess the overall severity of her burns, they were horrified to find that her skin was sloughing off in sheets, along with the purple fur. The pictures below are graphic, but they show why you should never use human hair dye to color a dog or cat:
The purple dye also caused Violet’s eyes to swell shut, and the post warns against another significant danger—internal burns. That’s because animals may be prone to lick a wound and swallow the toxic hair dye on their skin.
Grooming Is Important—but What Happened to Violet Is Abuse
Even if this dye had not been toxic, you have to remember this: No animal has a natural desire or need to be dyed, pierced, tattooed, or mutilated or modified in any other way to appeal to humans’ capricious aesthetic preferences. Although routine grooming is necessary and important for many species of companion animals, unnatural beauty procedures that don’t benefit an animal’s personal health and well-being should never be performed—there’s simply too much risk and absolutely no need. Forcing a dog to endure this kind of suffering isn’t trendy—it’s abusive.
Share this post with your friends, family, and social media followers. Let them know that they should never perform beauty treatments intended for humans on their animal companions. Let Violet’s story serve as an example of the dangers that dogs and cats can face.
