Weekly baths remove toxin-tainted dust from his fur.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—A doghouse? What's that? The idea of keeping our pets outside is becoming more and more a thing of the past. "There's no little doghouse outside anymore. The doghouse is our house," explains veterinarian Marty Becker, DVM, author of Why Do Dogs Drink Out of the Toilet?: 101 of the Most Perplexing Questions Answered About Canine Conundrums, Medical Mysteries and Befuddling Behaviors (HCI, 2006).

And while it's certainly better for pets to be part of the family nowadays (they're good for our health, too, doing everything from lowering blood pressure levels to boosting "love hormone" levels), living in the house opens up a wide array of potential new health risks for pets.

THE DETAILS: A recent Harris Interactive survey of dog and cat owners in the U.S. found that 23 percent of cats and 16 percent of dogs drink from the toilet, and 77 percent of dogs and cats eat crumbs off the floor and press their noses against windows. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except that most Americans use some pretty harsh cleaners and air fresheners in their their homes, and that can pollute household surfaces and the air, and cling to pets fur, too. "Pets have close contact with the ground, and their coats act like furry dust cloths—they just pick up and retain dust," says Dr. Becker. "They accumulate dust and mold and toxins and chemicals and then self-groom. And it also puts you at risk, because it's like sleeping next to a furry Swiffer."

But the Harris Survey, commissioned by the PawSafe Household Cleaners company, also found that more than half of the 2,482 survey respondents worry that their pets might be ingesting chemicals left behind from harmful cleaning products. Twenty percent of the participants also admitted that they weren't even familiar with the ingredients in the cleaners they use.