How to avoid a dash to the vet over the holidays

I'm sure we'll all over-indulge sometime over the festive season, it happens. But unless you want to be making a trip to a pet ER (and dropping a few hundred dollars at a minimum), try to stop your pets from indulging too.

Here are a few tips

Keep edibles out of reach

We tend to have a lot of the pet no-no foods around over Christmas:

Try to a/ keep these out of reach of your dog (cats not so much) and b/ stop well-meaning relatives slipping treats to the pets.

But, it's not just the stuff on display! Dogs have the most amazing sense of smell – they can literally smell individual ingredients, even in minute quantities – so that package from Aunt Emily in the UK containing the luxury chocolate wrapped up in the lovely scarf, or those rotting prawn heads in the bin – those are beagle beacons! And by beagle, I mean any of the food motivated dog breeds.

 

Keep the pets away from the non-edibles

Here, think of things that your pet (especially your cat) will see as a toy – a bauble on the Christmas tree, tinsel twinkling under lights or the tree itself (oh the climbing potential!)

I'm not saying you need to bah-humbug Christmas, just make sure your cat and decorations can be kept separate or that your tree is secured well enough that 'cat weight' won't pull it over.

 

The dropped/stepped on new puppy

While this isn't a dietary indiscretion situation, in all the Christmas days I worked at an emergency centre, not one went by where I didn't see a stood on or dropped new puppy

Here are the usual scenarios:

  • new puppy gets handed to visiting child, everyone oohs and ahhs, visiting child drops puppy, puppy screams
  • visiting relative steps back from bench, table, sink, bar and lands on puppy, puppy screams
  • new puppy is lifted up onto couch, falls off couch, puppy screams

You get the picture. Pups will scream immediately after any kind of injury – mild or serious. You know how kids cry when they fall over, even if they haven't hurt themselves at all? Pups do that too. In fact a puppy that goes quiet might be more hurt that a screaming on. By all means comfort your pup, but you might want to wait a few minutes before racing down to the emergency centre, as many times 15 minutes later the pup is running around happily again. 

 

Where to go with an after hours emergency

If you need veterinary advice or care after hours, you can call these centres:

These are the only ones we recommend in this area. Obviously, in a life-threatening emergency you should go to the centre closest to you.