Health & Fitness
Keeping Your Pet Safe During the Holidays
The holidays can provide a unique opportunity for pets to fall into harms way. Here we've provided a detailed list of items and occurances that may negatively influence your pets health.
We are all looking forward to the upcoming holiday season. Yet, it is important to understand that this time of year can pose unique opportunities for your pets to get into trouble.
Please review the following list of items that should be closely monitored or avoided in order to ensure that your pets have a safe holiday season.
Food Items: Bones (cooked or raw), Meat Trimmings, Fat, Uncooked Bread Dough, Chocolate, Candies (especially sugar-free), Raisins, Grapes, Currants, Macadamia Nuts, Walnuts, Onion, Garlic and Alcohol
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Decorative Items: Tinsel, Christmas Tree Water, Electrical Cords, Ornaments, Lit Candles and Potpourri
Holiday Plants: Any Lilies, Holly, Mistletoe, Poinsettia
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Miscellaneous: Batteries, Antifreeze (Non-Toxic Varieties too!), Cooking with Teflon Coated Cookware
For Exotic Pets and Fish: Make sure that all reptiles, amphibians and birds continue to have proper temperatures and ventilation surrounding their living space (temperature and humidity control is vital for maintaining health). This may be a good time to change light bulbs for UV light-dependent exotics.
Increase the number of times you change the bedding or substrate for your exotic pets. Higher winter humidity levels will encourage quicker mold growth and rapid fouling of their enclosures.
Fish tanks will usually experience a drop in pH this time of year due to closed windows and thus reduced air exchange in the home. Keep a window cracked to vent out accumulating Carbon Dioxide which is responsible for the drop in pH. Don't overreact by adding store bought chemical-based pH fixes.
We hope that by increasing awareness of the dangers listed above, you and your pets will have a safe and happy holiday season.
Stay tuned for more from Four Paws Veterinary Center!
Chris Tripi, DVM is one of the owners and veterinarians at Four Paws Veterinary Center in Dublin, CA. He was raised in rural Upstate New York and later moved to California to marry his wife and start a new life in the Bay Area. He dreamed about becoming a veterinarian from an early age and later decided that creating a practice from scratch was the best approach to helping clients and their pets as he would expect for his own pets. Dr. Tripi's interest include moutain biking, snowboarding, aquariums and hanging out with his family.
