Elder Care Tips: Keeping Pets Safe Around Holiday Decorations

Elder Care in Franklinton, NC

Having pets can be a wonderful enhancement to your elderly care journey with your aging loved ones, providing a wide range of tangible benefits including lowering blood pressure, reducing stress, easing feelings of depression and anxiety, improving overall mental and emotional health, and reducing the risk of various physical health concerns. With the value that these furry friends give your loved ones, you want to make sure that they are a part of your holiday festivities with your family, but you also want to keep them safe and healthy. As you wrap up your Thanksgiving feast and start to think about the glittering decorations you are going to put out for the holidays, make sure that you are also taking into consideration the safety and well-being of your family’s favorite furry loved ones so that they can enjoy the holiday season with you and continue giving your parents the benefits of time together.

Use these tips, and share them with your aging loved ones’ referred caregiver, to keep your parents’ pets safe around holiday decorations:

• Keep them away from a live tree. If your parents have a live Christmas tree, wreath, garland, or any other type of live Christmas greenery in the home, make sure that all pets are kept far away from it. Those fallen needles can be a nuisance for you when you have to clean them up, but they can be deadly for a pet. Ingesting them can not only be toxic, but they are sharp enough to perforate your pets’ intestines, causing serious injury. Invest in an artificial tree or block access to the tree with gates.
• Prevent a cat-tastrophe. Cats naturally love to climb and might just see your parents’ tree as the best-ever Christmas present. When they try to scramble up to the top, however, they could cause the tree to topple, causing broken ornaments, destroyed gifts, damage to the room, and an injured pet. If you cannot keep the cat away from the tree, help keep the tree up by installing a hook in the ceiling above where you put the tree and attach a length of clear fishing line to the top of the tree and the hook. This will keep it balanced and prevent it from falling.
• Do not let them play with the lights. Anyone who has seen the famous “Christmas Vacation” movie knows that cats and plugged in Christmas lights do not mix. While it is very unlikely that your pet will actually combust if she munches down on a strand of lights, it could cause an electrical shock and burn. Avoid lighting the bottom of the tree and never leave the lights plugged in when the tree is unattended.
• Open your own presents. Just like shiny presents are appealing to children, they may call the curiosity of pets as well. Remember that dogs have much stronger senses of smell than humans do, meaning they might be able to smell that sausage sampler platter or the cookie mixes for your daughter’s new toy oven right through the packaging and wrapping. This can encourage them to dig through the presents, possibly consuming things that could cause serious injury or illness. Avoid putting presents under the tree for as long as possible, and then when you do put them under, put any that might contain food products or that may smell like food products out of reach.