Today is the first day of my first-ever Holiday Week! Check back every day because, in addition to holiday-themed posts (including a super awesome guest post), I have a giveaway every single day this week!
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I love everything about the holidays – especially twinkling lights, rosy cheeks, sugar cookies, and all the festive flair!
Last Christmas, like every Christmas, we decorated our entire house. The stockings were hung; the tree was a-glow. It was cold and snowy out but warm in front of our fire. We were going to a holiday party that night, and I ran upstairs to take a shower. When I emerged, there was Emmett, chowing down on a holiday ornament: a cranberry-scented, holly-berry wreath/candle thing that was the centerpiece of our coffee table. It was a conglomeration of metal wires tying together plastic holly berries and leaves, topped with a scented candle. It was a gift from someone the previous Christmas, and now, most of it was in Emmett’s belly.
Before I had the chance to have a heart attack, Emmett started throwing up. I tried to mentally reassemble the decoration from the pieces that emerged, but there was no way to tell if it was all there. So off to the emergency room we went. The conclusion? The metal wires were (miraculously) flexible enough that they bent as they traveled through him, and he was able to pass everything without a problem over the next couple of days.
The moral of the story? No matter how diligent you try to be, decorations can be really hazardous to pets.
Cats and tinsel. Dogs and baked goods. Ornaments that look like toys. Decor that is scented to smell like food. Dangling cords that look like ropes.
My number one piece of advice? This might sound weird, but when you finish decorating, sit on the floor and look around. You’ll be at the approximate height of your dog (depending on his and your size, of course!), so you’ll be able to spot – and move or remove – items at his eye level that may tempt him.
On that note, for today’s giveaway, I have a copy of A Dog’s Purpose, which I reviewed here. I loved this book for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite parts? Throughout the book, the dog mentions that it was time for “Merry Christmas” again! I love that he calls it “Merry Christmas.” So cute.
Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of A Dog’s Purpose! I’d love to know: What holiday mischief has your dog encountered??
I’ll use random.org to select winners of all five giveaways, and all winners will be announced on Saturday. Each winner will have one week to claim his or her prize or I’ll select another winner.
Image: George Deputee
Holiday mischief??! Not my dogs! They know Santa’s watching and they’d better be good for goodness sake!
I think that is good advice to sit on the ground and look at it from their view; I never realized how many tempting things might be at their level.
Good advice, you are too right. We just have a little four foot tree that both our cat and dog can reach. I try to keep them away from it as much as possible but it may be a good idea to move some of them more dangerous items out of their reach. Thanks for bringing up this important topic.
As for holiday mischief, so far I think our dog has been pretty good and I don’t recall many issues last year. Though I didn’t have a blog back then so I could be forgetting something! With Shiva that is very possible.
Oh, that Emmett! We don’t really have any stories. All of us (even the kittehs) are Most Well-Behaved when it comes to Christmas. Cuz Santa Paws might be watching, you know!
Wiggles & Wags,
mayzie
Oh my goodness! So glad that Emmett was okay after all of that! Luckily for us, Gus is not a chewer and doesn’t get into anything he’s not supposed to…knock on wood 😉
Our first pooch has been through two holiday seasons without incident (knock on wood!!), though she does love to “open presents” and will sometimes poke her nose into gift bags to see if there’s anything for her inside. 🙂 This Christmas will be our first with Pooch #2, who is very excitable and curious but tends to watch her big sister for cues on how to behave, so I’m hoping she won’t get into any holiday trouble. At our house, the cats are the troublemakers!
My doggies are awesome! I have never had a problem with them getting into anything. I do make sure to try and keep electrical cords out of reach just in case, but so far so good!
pretty bokeh in that first picture!
Mom won’t let me get a tree…says me & the kitTONs will just be naughty with it. What a party pooper
Murphydog
Aunt vera, who is 96, adored Holly so much that she fed her a cappucino cookie. With actual coffee beans in it. Holly ran laps through the house like she was on drugs.
What will actual ingestion of Christmas tree do to a dog belly? Cat belly? Just curious as we would like to return to a real tree someday…