Christmas

Gifts they will use

The best pet present is the one still in use in February. For most dogs that means something to chew, shred or chase, so a Christmas dog toy set spreads eight small gifts across the whole holiday instead of one big moment on the day, while a Santa toy is the softer option for a gentle mouth. The quiet choice is a MerryLick Christmas lick mat: spread something soft across it, freeze it, and it will occupy a dog for twenty minutes while you eat. Cats are easier to please than most people expect, and a Christmas gift set for pets covers the stocking. If you would rather buy for the year ahead than for the day, the ideas in toys and enrichment outlast the tinsel.

Outfits and photo sessions

A festive outfit is for the photograph, not for the whole evening. Put the Christmas outfit for dogs and cats or the Santa costume on for a few supervised minutes, take the pictures and take it off again. Check that nothing presses on the throat, covers the eyes or restricts the front legs, and watch for the signals that your pet has had enough: a frozen stance, flattened ears, lip licking or trying to back out of it. Never leave an animal alone in a costume, because straps and hoods catch on furniture. For a pet who would rather not be dressed at all, a Christmas bandana or a bow tie gives you the festive photo with almost nothing on the animal, and a hat and scarf set sits somewhere in between. Year-round clothing lives in pet clothing and apparel.

Christmas foods to avoid

Some of what ends up on the table is genuinely dangerous. Chocolate contains theobromine, which dogs cannot process properly, and dark chocolate carries the most of it. Raisins, sultanas and currants can cause kidney failure in dogs, which rules out Christmas pudding, mince pies and stollen. Cooked bones, the turkey carcass included, splinter easily and can damage the gut, so they belong in a bin your dog cannot open rather than in a bowl as a treat. Onions, garlic, macadamia nuts, alcohol and the sweetener xylitol are all on the list as well. If your pet does get hold of any of it, phone your vet immediately rather than waiting to see what happens. Give them their own thing instead: a stuffed lick mat or a toy from the Christmas toy set keeps a dog busy while the family eats.

A calm Christmas at home

Guests, crackers, a doorbell that will not stop and a rearranged living room add up quickly, and the pet who copes badly at Christmas is usually just overwhelmed. Set up somewhere nobody visits before the first guest arrives: a quiet room with a bed from dog beds and mattresses, fresh water and the door closed. Keep mealtimes and walks on the usual schedule, and let a nervous dog opt out of the greeting at the door instead of being carried into it. Fireworks at New Year deserve their own plan, and the products in calming and anxiety relief are worth reading about before the end of the year. A frozen MerryLick lick mat gives a dog something to concentrate on while the house is loud.

Decorations cats can climb

A cat will read your tree as a climbing frame, which is bad news for the baubles, the lights and sometimes the cat. Anchor the tree to the wall, keep glass ornaments and tinsel off the lower branches, and unplug the lights whenever the room is empty. It helps just as much to give her a tree of her own: the Christmas tree-shaped cat tree is somewhere to climb that nobody minds her climbing, and the mini Christmas tree scratching post is the version for a small flat. Both keep the claws off the real branches, and there are permanent alternatives in cat trees and scratching posts.

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