Holiday pet safety: how to proof your Christmas tree and more

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The holidays are a time in which people love to set up all kinds of decorations in the home. More often than not, these decorations are not just potentially harmful to pets, some can be downright fatal if quick actions are not taken.

Kate Holmes, the marketing coordinator at the Bowling Green Warren County Humane Society, suggests keeping pets cordoned off from the tree and other potentially harmful decorations if possible.

“If you have curious pets, it can be difficult to keep them safe. So the holidays bring new hazards like Christmas trees, whether they’re real or fake, and even table scraps and things of that nature. So just trying to blockade as best you can and keep those pets away from hazards and just be mindful of them is really important,” Holmes said.

For many cat owners, it is a yearly war to keep them out of the tree and to event keep the tree upright, this however is not necessarily the biggest issue, but some of the decorations are, and veterinary technician Sarah Wilde at BGWCHS says that some of our favorite flowers can be deadly.

“We have a lot of flowers around the holidays that people love. Poinsettias. Lilies. Are two of some of the most poisonous flowers to cats, and even just a little bit of pollen could cause damage. Kidney damage is the biggest issue that you would see with them getting into those plants,” Wilde said.

Wilde has some helpful tips that can at the very least save on vet bills but at the most can save the life of your pets.

“So as a general rule of thumb, I tell people you love flowers, get the fake stuff. They’re still going to chew it. But chewing a little bit of plastic or fabric is much better than them chewing the actual flower because they will have to spend time at the vet in the emergency and hopefully make it. But some of them don’t,” Wilde said.