The last place you’d want to end up over the festive season is A&E – and the same goes for your dog.
Thankfully, a vet has provided a list of five common ways canines find themselves requiring emergency treatment at Christmas – and how they can be avoided. Cat the vet, who has more than 300,000 followers on TikTok, shared a video with everything you need to know at this time of year.
Tummy Upsets
“It doesn’t have to be food poisoning – just vomiting and diarrhoea,” Cat began. “It’s hardly surprising [dogs suffer this at Christmas] due to the amount of treats and snacks and rich food both for humans and dogs that’s around at this time of year.”
Cat added that whilst it is tempting to share all the fabulous Christmas food with our pets, it should be kept to a minimum and should “not be too dissimilar” to what they would normally eat. “Nobody wants to be cleaning up vomiting and diarrhoea from the carpet on Christmas Day,” she added.
Wounds
Next on Cat’s list is wounds that require veterinary attention that may need stitching up. “This is one thing people don’t really think about at this time of year,” she explained. “It’s such a social time of year and people often visit others with their dogs. We might go for walks or have strange pets in our house, and we might think that’s fantastic, but some times dogs aren’t so keen.”
As such, Cat emphasised it’s important to be respectful of our dogs and their personal space.
Christmas Food
Eating Christmas food such as chocolate, raisins, gravy and onions by accident is a well known problem at Christmas when it comes to our pooches, and for Cat the amount of food that can cause serious harm to dogs is “quite extraordinary”. She explained: “We just have to be careful to keep everything out of reach of their little noses.”
Exercise
“This is all about overdoing the exercising and the dreaded ‘Christmas walk’,” Cat joked. However, more seriously, she warned: “It can result in them becoming lame, or stiff, or sore.”
Cat continued: “Most dogs can cope with a little bit of extra exercise but sometimes for our older pets sticking to their routine as much as possible is actually the best way forward, or just leaving them at home just snooze by the fire while we work off all those calories!”
Decorations
“Christmas decorations are very tempting toys for our pets – they’re shiny, they’re sparkly and often they’re shaped just like balls!” Cat cautioned in her final piece of advice. “They can cause a lot of damage if they get smashed inside their mouths or stuck inside their stomachs.”
Cat also warned as examples that tinsel and baubles can block the intestines. She closed: “It’s impossible to keep an eye on our pets all of the time, but trying to limit any unsupervised access to things like fairy lights and the Christmas tree is a very good idea.”
One of Cat’s followers added further advice in response, meanwhile, commenting on her video: “Please don’t give your pet a Xmas dinner as a treat! Often it’s way too rich with gravy, onions and seasoning that isn’t good for them. Instead some lean turkey and some carrots, yes!”
