Pet Safety Tips for the Holiday Season
Nov 22, 2007 in Pet Safety
If you’re like many people, the arrival of the holiday season is a mixed blessing. Certainly the holidays are a time of great celebration, warmth, and good cheer, but the holidays also tend to come complete with their own brand of stress and hurrying about. There are gifts to be wrapped and meals to be cooked; guests to be welcomed and trees to be trimmed. You’ve made our list and checked it twice, but as you’re decking the halls and hitting the malls, it might be easy to forget a very important family member or two in all the hustle and bustle of the season. I’m talking about your pets, of course! Just as the holidays come with their own brand of stress for you, they also come with their own set of dangers for your four-legged friends. Read the following holiday pet safety tips to learn what steps you can take to make this festive season merry, bright, and safe for everyone involved.
A major part of figuring out how to make the holidays safer for our pet is to know your pet’s personality. Do you have an elderly cat who barely moves from his basket by the fire? You probably don’t need to worry that he’s going to try and climb the Christmas tree, then! Do you have a young puppy who loves to chew? You’ll want to take special precautions to keep anything of value (such as gifts!) and anything dangerous (such as glass ornaments or electrical cords) out of reach. For some people, pet-proofing their holiday could involve keep pets out of the central holiday activity area—away from the tree, feasting, etc.–by keeping doors closed or blocking them with easy-to-use baby gates. For others, it may involve a total re-thinking of the typical holiday plans. Do you often deck your halls with real holly and mistletoe? While most animals will shy away from munching on vast quantities of either of these plants, there are some who may develop a taste for it. Holly can cause digestive upsets if ingested and mistletoe can be fatal in larger doses. The small white mistletoe berries are especially tempting for playful cats. If in doubt, opt for some tasteful fake trimmings that will not only last for years, but will also make much less of a mess.
Speaking of messes, a major part of holiday pet safety is going to be keeping your pets out of the end-of-holiday war zones that inevitably crop up after parties, dinners, and present opening. Make sure the trash is either taken out or stowed in a pet-proof area so that leftover bones (a choking hazard), sharp pine needles, broken ornaments, discarded ribbon, and Styrofoam packing peanuts cannot be ingested. Don’t ever allow your guests to feed your pets anything without your permission, and avoid feeding holiday table scraps to Fluffy or Fido. It only leads to bad habits down the road, and some scraps, like bones and chocolates, can be dangerous. No matter how sturdy you think a bone from the table might be, most bones splinter easily once they’ve been cooked, and can perforate your dog’s esophagus. Chocolate has been known to cause seizures even in small quantities. If you want to give your pet a special holiday treat, make a visit to the pet store for fun toys and chewies in a variety of seasonal shapes.
When it comes to holiday lighting, we all love candles for their warm, romantic glow. Unfortunately, when it comes to fire, pets are blissfully unaware of the dangers involved. A knocked over, unattended candle can mean tragedy both for you and your pets! And what’s a Christmas tree without dozens of twinkling lights? By all means, enjoy the lights on your tree, but make sure your pets can’t reach the cords. This may involve putting a protective sleeve over your light cords or blocking your pet’s access to the cords entirely. Your holiday pet safety motto should be: “Whatever it takes!”
For some, upholding this motto may mean giving up that idyllic image of a puppy or kitten sleeping beneath the tree on Christmas morning, a big, red bow tied around its neck. Contrary to what we’ve seen in movies and read in books, pets make poor holiday gifts. For one thing, giving an animal to an unsuspecting person poses not only a holiday hazard to the pet, but a potentially lifelong hazard! What if the recipient decides they cannot keep a new puppy or kitten? Countless animals are euthanized every year after the holidays simply because they were given as gifts to people who had no desire to become pet owners. Furthermore, a pet given as a gift will undoubtedly become lost in the shuffle as more presents are opened, more relatives arrive, and more dinners and parties get underway. New pets, especially young ones, need extra peace and quiet when they’re first introduced to a new home, not extra stress and potential for danger! If you’re set on giving a pet as a present, purchase a gift certificate from your local humane society so that the recipient can take their own time and pick out the pet they truly feel a connection to.
With a little forethought, innovation, and compassion, you can have the best of both worlds: a home filled with holiday cheer and a happy, healthy pet. Keep these holiday pet safety tips handy and remember that our beloved pets give so much the whole year through and ask for very little in return. In this, the season of giving, it’s the least we can do to ensure that our pets have a warm, stress-free, and safe home for the holidays.
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