Bucks company offers ice-melt alternative that’s kind to pets

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    After several snowstorms this winter, you may be hoping for an early spring. A Bucks County company is hoping wintry weather will stick around.

    When the snow falls or ice forms, most property owners use rock salt or a calcium-based ice melter to clear driveways and sidewalks of the slippery stuff. But those substances can irritate the paws of pets ambling along on their daily constitutional.

    Safe Paw Ice Melter, made in Lower Bucks County, is designed not to harm dogs and cats even if granules work their way into their paws. Regular salt, said the company’s Steven Vernik, can burn.

    “That little bit of moisture in there gets those pellets of rock salt to start heating up and causing bad corrosive injuries and burns that are very hard to get to because they get lodged pretty deep in there as they walk,” he said.

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    Traditional salts also can be poisonous if pets lick affected areas, Vernik said.

    “The rock salt and most ice melters that are on the market contain many different chemicals, more than just the salt. Sulfur potassium, all kinds of other things are very dangerous and toxic to pets,” he said. “So while they are licking it and they are also ingesting a lot of poisons that cause gastrointestinal upset.”

    The company has plenty of pet-friendly competitors, but those products are produced primarily out of the Philadelphia region.

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