The Christmas season can be an overwhelming time for pets as their home is sent into upheaval with decorations and more visitors in the home, so owners may be looking for ways to help ease their animals into the festive season.
Dog behaviourist Anna Webb has shared her tips on helping pets cope with the changes to the home and how to incorporate them into Christmas in a fun yet safe way.
Speaking on behalf of Slingo, she's imparted her expertise on subjects like how to keep dogs safe around a Christmas tree and what to do when you’re expecting a flurry of guests.
Keep your own stress levels in check
Christmas must be so stressful for a dog. We get so stressed about it and therein begins the problem. We get more stressed and dogs do know when we’re stressed because they can smell cortisol through our breath and sweat, and dogs they see with their nose. Knowing that, then you can adapt your behaviour more appropriately. If you’re feeling stressed out, then your dog is. Of course the problem is when dogs are stressed, like us, they react in different ways.
Properly plan visits and work with your dog to greet guests
Christmas brings so many issues with it, namely more visitors in the home. Particularly as we’re coming out of the pandemic, many dogs haven’t been socialised to have visitors in the home, I’m seeing that a lot. You need to plan things very sensibly, so no unfortunate accidents might occur.
Over Christmas, dogs need somewhere to go, to relax, get away from it all and let all the humans have fun eating, drinking all the wine and playing games and human activities. Have a safe space in a different room, be it a crate or a different area of your home where your dog can relax with an interactive toy, perhaps have the radio on and just have some time to get away from it all.
Plan the home, plan your visitors, and ideally work with your dog to meet and greet visitors to the home. It all becomes a game, so being able to just say to your dog, 'Fido, in your bed' so they rush to their dog bed and won’t leave til you ask them to come out of their dog bed. That for me is one of the most useful skills for living in a busy household, especially at Christmas. Those are more logistical training steps that should be happening from the moment you bring your new dog into your home, these are life skills.
Be careful of dangerous foods and be mindful of the kind of decorations you use
My bull terrier is seven and we still won’t be having a Christmas tree this year, I don’t want my dog to be at the emergency vet on Christmas. Around the festive season, all sorts of problems can happen. Not least because there’s food everywhere from cheese in wrappers, mince pies - which are toxic to dogs - loads of chocolate everywhere (chocolate in the right dose is also a serious situation for a dog), but also things like tinsel, pine needles on a real natural Christmas tree can be toxic but they can also get stuck in the dog’s throat and cause quite a serious problem.
They can cause blockages in the stomach, so a variety of reasons with a real Christmas tree but actually the same applies to fake Christmas trees because you’ve got the plastic, the sharp bits, the metal bits.
I urge people to go for a sort of fabric, homemade, fun, paper-type decorations. Paper rather than tinsel because at least that would dissolve in the stomach eventually and be fairly soft. You’ve also got to think about presents around the tree as Sellotape can be a problem in the right quantity for dogs. You’ve got all that side of Christmas, where the gifting and the decorations are potentially a problem.
Share the Christmas experience in a safe way
A healthy dose of common sense; have the Christmas tree if you’ve got the space in a room where the dog’s not going to be allowed in over Christmas, create a fun boundary so the room they’re in is way more fun, way more peaceful and more yummy with something appropriate to eat like some of the turkey in an interactive toy, making sure there’s no cooked bones in there.
But of course, they can join in a bit with the Christmas dinner, a little bit of sausage or bacon in there as well. They can share the Christmas experience with you but appropriately for them as dogs. Of course dogs love to get a Christmas stocking, providing again it’s full of things that aren’t potentially dangerous for a dog to swallow or play with.
