‘Tis the season! In this article, Crystal gives tips to help your dog and your Christmas tree co-exist with peace in the home and goodwill towards man’s best friend.
Tips from the Trainer: Dog Proofing Your Christmas Tree
Christmas is a joyous time of year. Taking some safety precautions into consideration while you decorate and celebrate this holiday season will help keep it that way!
Tree Water
If you have a real tree in your home, you want to keep it looking its best. However, adding preservative chemicals to your tree’s water can be harmful to your pets if they were to drink it. Even if you do not add these chemicals to the water, the sap and chemicals that are already in the tree can seep into the water making it an unhealthy for your dog. Cover your tree’s base with a tree skirt or a screen to ensure they cannot drink out of the tree stand. The screen blocks your dog from drinking the water, yet makes watering your tree easier. Even if your tree does not have chemicals in it that would be harmful to your pet, if they continually drink the water in your tree stand your tree could dry out making it a potential fire hazard.
Cords
Secure any loose cords that run to and around your tree to help ensure that your dog won’t get tangled up in them. This also helps keeps them from looking like a viable playthings.
Anchor the Tree
Running a wire or strong fishing line from the center trunk of your tree to an eyehook attached to the ceiling will help prevent the tree from falling over if your dog bumps into it or all of a sudden decides it’s the biggest stick they ever did see! Not only will anchoring your tree save a lot of grief of cleaning up a knocked over Christmas tree, it will protect your pet from the tree falling on them.
Ornaments
Ornaments are often sentimental keepsakes so keep the easily breakable ornaments, like glass balls, up higher on the tree. This will not only protect your ornaments, it will keep Fido from stepping on glass shards if they were knock one off with their tail. Any ornament, if knocked off of the tree onto the ground, will very likely become a chew toy and not the safest one at that. If your dog’s tail is a super happy one then secure your ornaments with wire or even pipe cleaners instead of hooks to help keep them on nice and tight.
Tinsel
Tinsel, if eaten, can cause blockage in the digestive system and be very harmful to your dog. To be safe, it is best to just say NO to the shiny strands to prevent potentially fatal consequences.
Keep Chewers at Bay
If your dog thinks that your tree is the biggest chew toy Santa could have ever brought them, then provide your dog with plenty of more favorable options. (See the Mental Stimulation article in the Tips from the Trainer Archive) You can also spray chewing deterrent around the lower portion of the tree so it doesn’t taste good to put their mouths on the tree. Teaching your dog a “leave it” command or other obedience exercises that are incompatible with gnawing on the tree when you’re home with them can be helpful. If you do not trust your dog to be left alone with the tree, then block your dog’s access to the tree to play it safe.
Pine Needles
Pine needles can pose a choking hazard for your dog, especially for puppies and smaller dogs. Keeping your tree watered will keep the needles to a minimum, and sweeping up stray needles on a regular basis is a good precaution as well.
Food Décor
Putting candy canes, popcorn strings or berries on your tree may be yummy to the eye but it can be hard for your dog to resist these temptations. Not only is it not good for your dog to eat candy, the string the food is on can cause blockages in your dog if ingested. You will also give the anchor you put in place a strong test that may fail if your dog is working hard at tugging the strings of food off of the tree.
Under the Tree
Make sure than any food related presents are kept somewhere out of the dog’s reach. Not only can some human food be dangerous to your dog, but who wants to wake up to a bunch of presents opened before Christmas morning?
