Christmas with your four-legged friends? No problem! However, there are few rules to follow for their wellbeing. From avoiding loud noises to creating a “relax corner”: here are our holiday tips.
Christmas holidays are an important time for us to rest and spend time with those we love.
We fill our December with fun social occasions such as dinners, lunches, aperitifs or snacks with friends. But what do our pets think? Do they enjoy visits? Are there tips to follow to keep them calm and happy? The answer is yes: we must care for our four-legged friends, especially during Christmas holidays. This is the only way for everyone to spend nice holidays.
1st tip: avoid loud noises and forced socialisation
Our cats and dogs are sensitive to loud and sudden noises. Party situations, as we know, are often synonym of confusion, if not worse. It’s true that every pet lives a negative experience with fireworks, but also din can disturb them. That’s why our first tip is: try to be very careful and avoid loud music or loud and sudden noises. We don’t want our animal friends to be stressed in a festive occasion!
The same goes for forced socialisation. When we have “visitors”, it’s up to our pet how and when to interact with them. Do you remember being forced by adults to make friends or hug a relative? Cats and dogs feel the same.
If the interaction includes children, we must be doubly careful, and children must be taught to respect the animal.
2nd tip: respect your pets’ diet and habits
Even if Christmas holidays are a special moment in which our schedules and habits become flexible, we mustn’t transmit this “tradition” when it comes to our pets (this cannot be for our pets). This applies especially to dogs, who are used to have specific meal times. If they are used to have a delicious dinner based on dry
One Animal Protein food at 7 PM, you must be punctual in the usual time slot.
Besides meal time, respecting your pet includes also food type. If your dog eats
dry or wet pet food, try not to get out of the habit. Holiday feasts can be very tempting, but we must be firm about food: no sweets, no cakes or leftover food for our animal friends. Their imploring eyes won’t persuade you!
3rd tip: create a “relax corner”
People coming and going might push you re-organising your home space. Your pet, during holidays, has to have a quiet place to relax, far from curious eyes. Our tip, then, is to choose a quiet and easy accessible area in your house. Next, make it a “comfort zone” for your pet with water and food, but also pillows, blankets and their favourite toys. In this way, your pet will choose by themselves when to leave their comfort zone, come in and join the party! Finally, one last important tip: be careful to decorative plants. In our article “
Christmas Plants that are toxic for Cats and Dogs” you can read which ones to avoid.
Happy holidays!
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