Happy Day After

Happy Day after Thanksgiving! I hope that all of you had an amazing holiday yesterday and that you and your fur babies are recovering from all of the food and festivities. For those of you who traveled for the holiday, you probably still have your ride home to look forward to.

As you all contemplate what to do with the left overs and when would be the best time to travel home, I’d like to offer a few reminders:

• Please remember never to give your dogs left over turkey or chicken bones. These bones are very splintery and can cause a lot of damage to your dogs stomach and intestine.
• Avoid giving sugary foods to your dog; while a lot of the dog foods out there now have things like sweet potatoes in them, I would like to caution you not to give your dog the sweet potatoes that have been soaked in brown sugar and topped with marshmallows. Just like people, sugars are horrible for dogs and can create problems like diabetes.
• No chocolate…EVER! Chocolate can be fatal to dogs, so I am vigilant to keep this out of the reach of my dogs, year round.
• A while back, I heard that avocados are toxic to dogs. The truth is, that is not true. Avocados contain a toxin called persin which is not toxic to dogs or cats. It IS toxic to pigs and parrots, so don’t feed it to them. The biggest fear that avocados hold for dogs is that if they get a hold of a whole avocado, they could choke on the seed that is in the middle of it. As you can imagine, that could be bad.
• Grapes and rains should not be fed to dogs, in any amounts. The toxicity in dogs is well documented and should be avoided. Any amount, even small amounts, can be fatal.
• Water is a very important thing to have with you when you travel back home, both for yourself and for your four-legged love. Please remember to have some sort of container that your pet can drink water from while on the road; you never know when you might hit a traffic jam and be stuck sitting in traffic.

As I look around my house and see all that has to be done to clean up from yesterday’s food festivities and look ahead to what I will need to do to get ready for the Christmas season that is quickly approaching, it makes me want to jump into action OR jump back into bed. We will see what action prevails!

Many blessings to you and your four-legged-love ~ Tammy