Many, many common garden plants are toxic to pets to some degree or another (also to humans as well) - far more than are non-toxic. If they are beyond the curious, puppy-chewing stage, there shouldn't be any concerns. Pet owning gardeners are everywhere and virtually all plant whatever they wish without issues.

I work at a nursery specializing in hydrangeas, and we've got a dog and 3 cats that live on-site. None have ever had any trouble with nibbling. Also, many other dogs come visit, and I don't remember ever having any problems. It should be completely safe. Enjoy your limelights!

Thank you for your reassurances. I feel better about planting this hedge now.

I had a dog chew up the ES by my door last summer and it didn,t seem to hurt him any. My horses just ate the 4 foot ES under the window .Its now a 1 foot tall plant. The one they ate just got the cover taken off a few days before so it hadn,t leaved out yet so no tummy ackes there, but the one last summer was in full leaf and bloom and he seemed to just want to shred it . He is a mini dackshund and didn,t get sick so I think mayby they would have to eat alot of the plant .I moved it just in case he got it in his head to do it again. I had a LL one the deck at the same time and he didn,t touch that so mayby they aren,t as tempting. Bad taste or something.

Hydrangeas ARE toxic. I listed some sites to check for information under madeyna's other post. You could copy and paste the sites to read information, or do a Google search under Hydrangea Toxicity like I did. You will turn up a number of locations to read about toxicity for dogs, cats and horses.

Most animals do seem to leave the poison stuff alone if given the choice. Other animals don't, so you don't plant toxic stuff or must enclose it so they can't chew the sticks and leaves. My Hydrangea bushes have rabbit fences in winter, because rabbits DID nibble them the last couple years. My silly young dog seems to develop a chewing need in winter. So fencing the shrubs means they get protected from her as well and she is not endangered because she is young and silly.

I try to give her sticks that are OK to chew, like non-toxic Witch Hazel and Honeysuckle, trimmed already to keep the fence clean. Seems to be just her, the other dog doesn't NEED to chew sticks like that.

Anyway, sites are helpful to check on things you might plan to plant. I have had to cross off some lovely trees I wanted, because they are extremely poison to horses. I can't take a chance of leaves getting nibbled after they fall, since they will kill the horses. Only takes a few leaves, they are that toxic.

Common stuff, like Acer Rubrum, the beautifully colored Maple everyone buys for their yard. I know some folks who lost horses that nibbled a couple dried leaves that fell in the paddock. Horse was dead in less than an hour. Buckeye family is very bad, lots of lovely trees and shrubs in that.

I check those lists quite often when considering new plantings, they didn't used to have such information commonly available before the Internet.

Every year our bichon eats the bushes and is violently ill! We have to put in a temporary fence

Well, I have to say that I work really hard to train all new dogs (I foster often) not to eat any landscape plants. This is just on general principle because you simply never know plus it is way easier to teach "Never, not anything" than it is "Sometimes- this but not that."

Your best bet is not to feed/spray organic fertilizers near or to those plants that you value. My dogs are unfortunately attracted to the smell of some of those products. Sigh.... They even eat some of those holly leaves with a pointed/prickly end if some amt of fertilizer has gotten on it.

Rabbits are hard on young hydrangea stems in late winter/early spring but I've never seen my dogs eat any of my hydrangeas.

I have had many hydrangeas and my dogs have never been interested in them. They will dig up a Rose now and then but for some reason they leave the hydrangeas alone.