Pet-Proofing for Turkey Day: A Thanksgiving Safety Guide
In this bonus episode, we're delving into the ins and outs of Thanksgiving pet safety. Learn how to create a pet-friendly space for guests, navigate potential food hazards, and make this holiday season enjoyable for your furry friends. Tune in for essential tips to keep tails wagging and whiskers purring.
What You’ll Learn:
How to prepare your home for Thanksgiving guests and keep pets secure.
The importance of pet identification in case they accidentally get out.
Tips on creating a quiet and calm space for pets amid holiday hustle and bustle.
Safe and healthy treats for pets during Thanksgiving.
The potential dangers of certain Thanksgiving foods for pets.
Guidelines on sharing a Thanksgiving meal with pets responsibly.
Identifying common holiday foods that can be toxic to pets.
Educating guests about the risks of feeding pets certain human foods.
What to do if a pet gets hold of toxic foods or substances.
The importance of knowing the signs of potential health issues in pets.
Understanding when to seek veterinary assistance during the holidays.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"Remember that not everybody has pets and so they don't always know like some of the rules of which pets stay inside and which pets are okay to go outside." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman
"Put on classical music or something that's going to just help them to not have to hear all the sounds out in the kitchen area." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman
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Read The Transcript:
Dr. Sugerman: [00:00:00] So, who's going to have guests over for their Thanksgiving? If you are, put some paw prints in the comments, but otherwise, I will not be. I will be at the emergency clinic, so hopefully you guys don't come and see me. And this is going to help you prepare not to have to come and see me. We're going to talk about some of the emergency things that I see for pet parents bring their pets in around Thanksgiving and just how we can avoid those things. My wife is going to be having family members over. I'm sure lots of other people are going to be having families over as well. So we're going to try to help keep our pets as safe as possible.
Hi, and welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I'm going to teach you about veterinary medicine. In this podcast, we can dive deeper into the understanding of what our pets are going through and break down medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information. Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only.
This is not meant to be a diagnosis for your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment [00:01:00] options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things. Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options and different opinions.
The information I provide here is to help pet parents have a better understanding about their pets. If you like our podcast, please consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or just somebody else who has pets as well. Now, let's jump into this week's episode.
All right, welcome back everybody. So today we're going to be talking about how we can keep our pets safe for the Thanksgiving holiday that's coming up here. So this is a nice little quick bonus episode just to talk about those things that we're going to do to try to help keep our pets safe. So first thing is, just preparing our house for our pets with our guests as well.
You have to remember that not everybody has pets and so they don't always know like some of the rules of which pets stay inside and which pets are okay to go outside. A lot of people think that if a cat runs out the front door, it probably was an indoor outdoor cat. So it's going to be not a big deal.
[00:02:00] That might be a cat that does not go outdoors and they are not familiar with the area. So we need to make sure we can keep all of them safe. So first big thing is preparing your house, making sure that if you're going to have guests over and your cats or dogs are not indoor outdoor dogs that you put them into a room that they will not be able to get out of.
You know, put a sign up saying, Hey, there's cats in here, please do not let them out. Whether it's like, a bedroom or a bathroom or something so that way people are not going in and out of there and letting your pets out. Or if they have a kennel like a dog that is kennel trained that's even better because that way they can be in a kennel in a nice safe space and just be able to stay calm with all the hustle and bustle that's going on outside in the Thanksgiving area.
One of the other things too, is to just set up that room to where it does stay nice and quiet, or there is some sort of distraction. So putting on like classical music or something that's going to just help them to like, not have to hear all the sounds out in the kitchen area. White noise is really [00:03:00] good for that as well.
I don't always suggest the TV kind of the problem with the TV is that. It doesn't always have the nice soothing noises on it. Sometimes you'll hear, gunshots, or you'll hear screaming, or whatever it is. Even if you put it on your Discovery Channel, you're going to hear some scary noises as well.
So I don't usually suggest putting it on the TV. I usually suggest some sort of like classical music. Something, something very calming. That way, we can make sure that they're not going to be able to get out and people aren't going to be walking into that room and accidentally letting them out.
The next big thing is to make sure that if for some reason they do get out, let's say they are very social dogs and you do want them out and about with people, or your cat loves people and so wants to be around people. Have some sort of identification on them, just in case they get out, they may not be the type of cat or dog that does ever get out, but you just never know.
And you want to make this the easiest possible for somebody to bring them back to you. So having some sort of identifications like a collar that has your [00:04:00] name and phone number on it. So that way somebody can call you easily, but also making sure that they have some secondary form of identification too. Those collars can come off a lot easier than we think that they can.
So just having something else as well. So usually a microchip is the second best thing. Because if they're found, and let's say they're brought to the emergency hospital or the Humane Society, then they can just scan the microchip, get your information, and be able to call you to tell you that they have your pet.
I highly suggest making sure you have two forms of identification to make sure that your pets can get back to you. Hopefully quickly and safely. All right, so it's kind of like about just like how you can set the things up too. Oh, one other thing I was going to mention too is baby gates are another big thing that can help.
So just having some sort of baby gate is like a reminder to people to close the door. Because if that baby gate is up, hopefully they'll close shut. And I was on another podcast recently. I was super happy to hear that you could actually find [00:05:00] baby gates that will automatically close.
So I would highly suggest that as well. I did another talk on, it's called Starlight Pet Talk. That podcast. And we talked a lot about these things as well, just like how to keep your pet safe for the holiday. So you can also check that out as well. She was the one who told me that you could like have these baby gates that just automatically close, so that's another really great way to just help make sure that your pets stay safe, too. Another big thing is knowing if you're going to have guests who are going to bring their pets over as well. Again, I do find a lot of dog fight wounds or cats who have been bit by a dog that come in on Thanksgiving because everybody's around, and they're like my pets usually get along with other dogs. And most of the time they do, and that's great.
But now we're putting together a lot of people so there's lots of noise which makes it chaotic which makes their stress level higher but also there's lots of food and dogs who are very food motivated sometimes will bite another dog [00:06:00] because they assume that they're coming to eat their food or they'll bite a cat because they, you know, now have this prey drive and then because they're trying to like, eat all the food.
So I don't suggest having like dogs and cats together that are not in the same household under these circumstances, because it's just a higher stress circumstance for them. Next big thing is talking to your guests about food. If your pet is not the pet that normally just scarves down tons of human food, then this is not the time to start that. A lot of people want to give to the pet because they're like, oh, I'm sharing in this big, amazing meal.
And I want to share this with your dog as well, because it's Thanksgiving and we all should be sharing and giving. Unless you want to end up in the emergency hospital, that's not a good thing to do because there are certain foods that are okay to feed them that are very like, uh, they're not very fatty like things like vegetables, carrots and stuff that [00:07:00] are not cooked in a lot of things.
Just raw vegetables are great. But let's take your turkey for example. Most people like a really moist. tender turkey. And so you'll put lots of butter or oil or something inside the turkey, not just on the outside of the turkey. Like you'll put tons of seasoning and stuff in there as well, right? So by doing that, we're now making it a much fattier bird.
Since actually turkeys are very lean and most of the time it's okay to feed them turkey because it's a very lean bird. It's a very lean protein. But when we start adding stuff to it, now it becomes not a lean protein. If you're going to do that, and let's say maybe you've cooked the turkey, but haven't put anything into it like, you know, injected butter or anything into it, the breast is probably going to be the leanest portion of that to be able to feed them little bits of it.
If somebody is going to feed it to them, but not the thigh. The thigh has a lot of fat in it as well. So not the legs or anything, not the thighs. You want to make sure it's like just the turkey breast, no skin on [00:08:00] it, no seasoning. And if you've injected butter or something into it, then it's off limits.
We're not going to give them the turkey then. You instead, you could just have let's say you can go out to the store and get canned chicken, like the chicken that comes in the tuna aisle, you can get them some canned chicken just to give the dog if they really want to be able to share this feast with them.
That way it is something that is very lean. It's not going to cause them to have an upset stomach because the last thing you want is for you to have this great thanksgiving dinner and that night be up all night because your pet's been vomiting or having diarrhea, which I just talked about in the last episode.
So if you do have that, you can always listen to this last episode to know what to do about that, giving them something that's going to be a good treat still, but something that's not going to end up with you being in the emergency hospital that night, or the next night, or the following night.
The other big thing is bones. A lot of people will want to give bones, so they'll eat their turkey, or they'll eat their, what is those, those little game hens? They'll eat one of those, and then they'll give the [00:09:00] dog the bone. So that's also not a good thing as well. People think that it's very dry and it's not going to upset them and the bone, dogs eat bones all the time because they did that in the wild but if your dog is not used to that, one, that's going to be a problem because it's that bone actually has bone marrow in the middle of it.
Which is very fatty and that will cause to have an upset stomach or pancreatitis which is an inflammation of the pancreas and I've talked about that on a previous episode as well. The other thing about bones is sometimes when they've been cooked they'll break very easily and then they'll create these shards which then can get stuck.
And we don't want that to happen. So one big thing, so many episodes I've talked about I've talked about bones in the past on a previous episode, so you can always go look at the bone episode. But, one of the big reasons I also don't want them to get the bones is because if they get stuck somewhere it can go through the intestines or through the stomach.
And then also, if you do know [00:10:00] that somebody gave them a bone, do not feed them for about 12 to 24 hours. Do not give them any Pepto Bismol. Do not give them anything that's going to decrease their stomach acid, because we want that stomach acid to break down all of that bone. The easiest way to do that is to make them really hungry, so don't feed them.
Other things, like I said, there are things that you can give them. Don't give them sweet potatoes and stuff if it's going to be something that's has tons of sugar and butter and stuff on it, but let's say you did a sweet potato it's just a boiled sweet potato.
Boiled sweet potato is okay. If you want to again if you want to give them something to help like just because somebody feels like they need to be able to give the pet something, do just a boiled sweet potato so somebody could just give them the boiled sweet potato. Have a bowl out that's specifically for the dog or for the cat so that way you can have people who you know were going to feed them, feed them something that's going to be healthy enough to not cause them to have an upset stomach.
All right, some of the other things too is people tend to bring lots of treats [00:11:00] over. So like they'll bring big bags of treats and stuff, or they'll want to give lots of treats to the pet. Again, if we give tons of treats that they're not used to, it's going to cause them to have an upset stomach.
So ask them not to do that or just limit them, give them a small bag, whatever it is to try to limit the amount of treats that they're able to give, so that way they're not going to get an upset stomach from that.
Another big thing is making sure that they don't get anything with garlic and onions in it. Garlic and onions are a toxin, and so we don't want them to get things like, people will make green beans and stuff with lots of garlic and onions, or the dressing with lots of garlic and onions.
So make sure they don't get those things, because, again, that can cause a problem. You can go back and listen to the onion and garlic toxicity episode, to learn more about that one.
If people bring over chocolates, things like that, because that is a common thing, bringing over, lots of desserts and stuff. You want to keep any of those chocolate type things up on a high shelf so that way they're not able to get to those and they're not going to be able to eat the chocolates. Again, we don't want them into the emergency [00:12:00] hospital at night because if they do get into chocolate we are gonna have to make them vomit.
I've talked about this on the chocolate toxicity episode. But it's not great to give them peroxide. There are lots of problems that can happen by giving them peroxide. So I don't usually suggest that unless you have no other option.
Otherwise, bring them into the emergency clinic because then we're going to be able to make them vomit. Especially with cats, do not give cats hydrogen peroxide. It just goes very badly. Yeah, we might have to bring them in, have them vomit, and then hopefully if we can get it in time, then you're not going to have any problems.
The other thing, too, is if there's, let's say your family members have brought something over. If it's a certain type of chocolate, we need to know what kind of chocolate that is whether it was cocoa, or if it was dark chocolate, or just, just light chocolate. We should know what it is.
Or, sorry, milk chocolate. We just need to know what it is. And then also, if they've done a sugar free recipe, we need to know if there was xylitol in that. Again, that's another big problem, another episode that I did on xylitol [00:13:00] toxicity, but it causes really low blood sugar, and it can also cause liver damage.
So we want to make sure if they, if they did get into something, we need to know if it has xylitol in it. Alright, so those are our biggest things for this Thanksgiving season, we're also going to have other things that we have to worry about for Christmas season.
Some people have their Christmas trees and stuff up already. So if you do have your Christmas trees and stuff up, then we have to worry about things like tinsel, we got to make sure the cats can't get into the tinsel and things like that. But I'll have another episode specifically on our Christmas stuff. I would say 1 other thing I will mention is, I do have a lot of THC toxicities during the holiday seasons as well.
And again, I had to episode on THC toxicities, but if you start seeing that they're like drunk and wobbly, you start asking your, your house guests, if anybody might have brought some sort of pot product, because that might be what it is. And then if that's the case, go back and listen to the THC episodes. You know what to watch for, because they don't necessarily have to come in [00:14:00] for that.
And then last thing I'm going to mention is I do have a lot of euthanasias during the Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's season. That is something that unfortunately we have to deal with a lot.
Somewhat because of the money aspect of it, you spend a lot of money doing, Black Friday and getting ready for Christmas and holiday dinner and stuff. I understand that. But the other thing too, is that people come to visit that period of time, your family members are coming to visit.
And so we have a lot of euthanasia during that time, because that's the time for everybody to say goodbye at that point. So just be aware of that. Just when you go into the clinic, if you see somebody like bringing their pet in before you a lot of times that's because either they're more critical or they're going to be putting their pet to sleep. And so we don't really want them waiting in the waiting room before that happens. So just, just be aware of that.
All right, guys, I'm going to do the animal fact real quick. We're going to talk about turkeys, of course, because it's Thanksgiving, right? So [00:15:00] the most common thing, that most people know about, most kids know about about turkeys is that they say gobble gobble, right?
That is one of the first things we teach them about turkeys. They say gobble gobble. But did you know that they also like cluck and they yelp and they kiki and they purr? It's like they have lots of different sounds that they do. Some crazy facts about how you can tell the sex of a turkey is by looking at their droppings.
The males will make a J shape for their droppings, and then the females will have a spiral shape for their droppings. Also, the larger the dropping is, the older the bird is as well. They're also really fast, like you don't think about how fast these turkeys are, because most domestic turkeys, we think about that they're very fat and they would do that on purpose.
So that way we can get more meat from them as well. But wild turkeys are not like that. They're actually very fast. So they can run up to 18 miles per hour. Just just normal running and they can fly up to 50 miles per hour. That's, that's pretty fast for a bird. [00:16:00] Wild turkeys also sleep in trees so they can't see very well at night, so therefore they have to sleep in the trees to help protect them from predators.
During the day though, they can actually see very well. They can see three and a half times better than we can actually, so that's pretty crazy. And then there are actually only two types of wild turkeys. There's the North American wild turkey and the oscillated turkey in Central America. There are five subspecies of the North American wild turkey with lots of distinct colors, but they all belong to the same big group of North American wild turkeys. And interestingly, wild turkeys almost went extinct in the 1900s, but through conservation they were able to go from about 200,000 turkeys worldwide to about 6.5 million turkeys.
And that's how we started to get these turkey farmings because that way we weren't hunting a bunch of wild turkeys and we're able to raise our own turkeys instead. Just some [00:17:00] interesting turkey facts that you can talk about at Thanksgiving. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people talking about turkey poop during Thanksgiving.
I thought that was super interesting. Alright guys, as always, if you have any questions, please email me at any point. Or you can contact me on social media and I hope everybody has a fantastic Thanksgiving. Please keep your pets happy, healthy, and safe. Thanks guys.
Thank you guys for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or you just want to say hi, you can email me at Suggs, S U G G S @ VetsplanationPodcast.com or visit the website at VetsplanationPodcast.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you back here next week.