Scents and pets: caution comes first
More and more people use diffusers at home, and it is reasonable to ask how that affects a dog or a cat. The short answer: it affects them a good deal more than it affects us, and with cats you have to be especially careful.
This article is for information only. For any doubt about your particular animal, your vet is the one who decides.
Their sense of smell is not like ours
A dog has hundreds of millions of olfactory receptors; we have a few million. Cats also have an extraordinarily well developed sense of smell.
The practical consequence is simple: what seems a mild fragrance to you can be intense for your animal. When you scent a home with pets, the right intensity is always lower than the one you would use without them.
The problematic essential oils
Several essential oils are toxic to dogs and, above all, to cats, which lack certain liver enzymes needed to metabolise them. Among those most often cited in the veterinary literature: tea tree, eucalyptus, pine, cinnamon, clove, pennyroyal and citrus oils applied directly.
Basic rules, no exceptions:
- Never apply essential oils to the animal's skin or coat.
- Never give them orally.
- Do not leave bottles within reach. Accidental ingestion is a veterinary emergency.
- With cats, take all of the above even further. Their metabolism makes them far more vulnerable.
If you notice excessive drooling, tremors, vomiting, breathing difficulty or listlessness in your animal after using a diffuser, ventilate the room and take it to the vet.
How to scent a home with animals
It can be done, with good judgement:
- Low intensity. Always below what you would use in a home without animals.
- Ventilation. Never in a closed room with no air renewal.
- An escape route. The animal has to be able to leave the room if the scent bothers it. Never diffuse in a space it cannot leave: carriers, cages, closed rooms.
- Observe. If it avoids the room or moves somewhere else to sleep, it is telling you something.
- Ask first if your animal is very young, elderly, has respiratory problems or is under treatment.
The case of spaces with many animals
In dog day care centres, veterinary practices and boarding kennels, the real problem is usually not the scent but the bad smell: the concentration of fatty acids and amines exceeds what natural ventilation can shift.
What works there is not perfuming — adding fragrance on top of animal odour produces a mixture worse than the original — but neutralising: compounds formulated to react with those specific molecules and turn them into odourless ones. And always at low intensity, precisely because a dog's sense of smell is far more sensitive than ours. How neutralisation works.
What we sell and what we do not
For the sake of clarity: our refills are perfumery compositions formulated for cold nebulisation, not pure essential oils for therapeutic use. We do not sell aromatherapy for animals and we do not give veterinary recommendations.
What we do is scent and neutralise spaces, including places with animals, with the precautions above. If you have doubts about your own case, write to us and we will tell you frankly whether it suits you or not.
