Important Holiday Safety Tips to Keep Pets Happy and Healthy

With the feel and smell of fall finally in the air, it’s time to start thinking about the holiday season just around the corner! The holidays are always an exciting, fun time of year, with decorations going up, presents getting wrapped, and delicious food being eaten. But it can also carry some risks for our furry friends. Before you start decorating your home and getting ready for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate, keep these tips in mind to keep your family pets safe and happy.

Parties, Extra Family, or Surprise House Guests

The holidays are typically a time for family and friends to come into your home, potentially for days at a time. However, loud parties and house guests can cause your pet a bit of extra stress. There are a few things you can do to make sure your pet still feels safe and as stress free as possible while you play host to your family and friends.

Even if your pet is usually sociable and comfortable with people, it’s still possible for a large gathering or a steady stream of drop-ins to cause them to become overexcited or anxious.

You can keep your pet calmer by making sure you have a safe space they can go to get away from visitors—someplace like a quiet bedroom guests can’t enter. This way, they can retreat from the noise and excitement if they get too stressed out. Make sure you let your guests know that you have a pet in the house, so that exit doors aren’t accidentally left open in the hubbub of a party. You should consider having your pet microchipped if you don’t already, just in case your pet does manage to escape the home.

Holiday Plants and Foliage

Decorating with seasonal plants is common during the holidays; unfortunately, a number of these plants are highly toxic to dogs and cats. Balsam, pine, cedar, holly, mistletoe, amaryllis, poinsettias, and lilies are just a few of the commonly exchanged plants around the holidays that can be extremely dangerous or poisonous to your pets if they decide to eat them. Keep any potentially toxic plants well out of your pet’s reach and be sure to check available lists of poisonous plants if you are unsure.

If you have a live Christmas tree in your home, you should be aware that additives to the tree’s water can be potentially harmful to your pet. If you have a pet in the house, don’t add supplements of any kind to your Christmas tree’s water. Many cats also love to climb Christmas trees, which, in addition to being dangerous for your kitty, can potentially cause a great deal of damage to your favorite ornaments. Consider placing your tree in a corner to limit your cat’s access to it, and possibly even secure the tree to the ceiling with fishing line to help prevent a potential crash. You can also try spreading aluminum foil around the base of the tree; cats don’t like to walk on aluminum foil, so this could keep your kitty from coming too close.

Keep tree decorations out of reach of your pets. Broken ornaments could damage your pet’s paws if they step on them, tree lights can cause burns or even shock your pets if they chew through the wire, and tinsel can block your pet’s intestines if ingested, which can only be fixed with surgical intervention. Try to keep any lights, ornaments, or tinsel in higher parts of the tree, out of your pet’s reach.

If you’re decorating with candles, be sure to keep them out of your pet’s reach and never leave an animal unsupervised with an open flame. Put up a screen on your fireplace and blow out any candles when you leave the room; this is also a good policy in general to prevent accidents in the home.

Holiday Treats and Food

We all love to spoil our pets with special treats, but try and keep that limited to treats made specifically for your animal, not human food. Rich foods can upset your pet’s stomach, and some foods, such as like chocolate, onions, or raisins, could be harmful to them. When in doubt, keep the human food for your human guests, and be sure to clean up any leftovers from your countertops so pets can’t sneak a snack. There are plenty of holiday-themed pet treats you can use to spoil your special pets; pick up some of those instead!

If you keep these tips in mind when decorating and preparing for your holiday parties and events, you and your pets will have a great time and keep the stress to a minimum. Stay safe!