Protecting our furry friends 

For many community members, decorating the house with bright lights and strings of tinsel is a highlight of the festive season - but for our four-legged friends, some of the highlights of the season can pose some serious health risks.

“Sometimes these things can lead to emergency surgery,” said the Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) lead veterinarian, Gabrielle Carrière. “Our pets can be super curious, so you really have to keep an eye on things.”

One of the worst pieces of decoration for pets is Christmas tinsel, which many people like to wind around their Christmas trees or hang around the house. These sparkly strings are usually made from plastic lined with a thin coating of aluminum.

Cats in particular are notorious for chewing on tinsel. When they swallow it, it can get caught in the animal’s esophagus and digestive tract, leading to serious health complications for the pet.

“The digestive system is always moving, so when that little string goes into the stomach and then into the intestine, that string can end up essentially sawing through the digestive system, and that can actually kill a cat,” Carrière said. “Those things are very dangerous, and cats and kittens can be crazy, they’re curious and sometimes they love to chew on these things.”

Carrière said that cats can also swallow strings from other ornaments on trees which can lead to similar issues, as well as cotton balls used as decorative snow. Typically, the solution in these situations is emergency surgery.

“It’s a lot of money and it’s a lot of stress for families,” Carrière said.

The festive season also means a lot more food for many families. Some families will enjoy a well-seasoned turkey, but ingredients like garlic and onion can be toxic to animals, and human food can often make pets seriously unwell.

One food in particular can cause urgent health concerns for dogs in particular: chocolate.

“Dogs can smell so well, that sometimes if you put chocolate in a gift and then put that unattended under the tree, the dog will actually unwrap the whole thing,” Carrière said. “Sometimes, they eat the wrapper, and they eat all the chocolate, and if a dog eats a lot of chocolate, that’s a life-threatening problem.”

The tree itself can also be a problem. Sometimes, animals will chew on the branches of the tree - with plastic trees, that can mean the animal is consuming little pieces of the material, and with real trees, that means your pet is swallowing pine needles.

“Most of the time, that won’t cause any deadly problems in the same way shiny things on the tree can,” Carrière said. “But it can definitely give them some digestive upset.”

Pets can be sneaky - it’s almost as if they know that they’re not meant to gnaw on decorations - so it’s important to keep an eye out for warning signs that your furry friend might have consumed something without you knowing, such as a lack of appetite, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Pet owners should always supervise their animals around treats and decorations - though Carrière said the easiest thing to do is to remove those dangers from the house entirely.

“I would definitely ban some of these things from my tree,” Carrière said. “You should watch your Christmas tree, and if your pet is way too interested, you should make it

inaccessible when nobody is supervising.”

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