Care Guides

The waiting room of an emergency vet on Boxing Day evening is a strange place. Somebody is usually still in a paper hat. Last time I sat in one there was a spaniel who had emptied the bin of turkey carcass, a cat with a length of ribbon somewhere it should not be, and an embarrassed man holding a labrador that had found the advent calendar. None of them were careless, just busy in a house that had stopped being the house their pet knows.

That is why this fortnight fills out-of-hours clinics. Everything changes at once, doors stand open, and the floor is covered in things that were never there before. Ten minutes with the decorations box, thinking like a bored cat, beats any amount of vigilance on the day.

The tree and everything hanging off it

Anchor it. A cat will climb it, and a wobbling tree takes the glass baubles down on the way. Fishing line from the trunk to a small hook in the wall is invisible and takes two minutes. Cover the water reservoir with foil, because pets drink from it and it collects sap, bacteria and whatever preservative came with the tree.

Keep glass and anything swallowable in the top third, with shatterproof decorations low down where tails and paws reach. Watch the hooks as much as the baubles, since a wire ornament hook behaves like a fish hook inside a gut. Tuck cables into cord protectors, and switch the lights off at the wall whenever the room is empty.

The one thing you must not pull

If you own a cat and take only one point from this, take this one. Tinsel, curling ribbon, meat string, dental floss and the strands off cheap decorations are what vets call linear foreign bodies, and they are the most dangerous things in your house this month.

A cat's tongue is covered in backward-facing barbs, so once a strand is over the tongue it cannot be spat out; it gets swallowed by default. If one end then snags, usually under the tongue or at the stomach outlet, the intestine keeps trying to move the rest along and concertinas itself up the string like a curtain on a rail. The string saws through the bowel wall. Major surgery is the good outcome.

So no tinsel in a house with a cat, and ribbon goes in the bin the moment a parcel is opened. Meat string goes straight into a bin the dog cannot open. And if you ever see string hanging from your pet's mouth or backside, do not pull it. I know how strong the urge is. Pulling can slice the intestine from the inside. Cut it flush if it is trailing, then go to the vet immediately.

The bin, the buffet and the guest's handbag

The food risks here are volume and access rather than anything exotic. Chocolate sits out in bowls and hangs at nose height on the tree, mince pies and pudding are dense with raisins, sugar-free desserts may contain xylitol, and alcohol gets left in glasses at exactly the height a curious dog can reach.

The bin is the real offender. A bag holding the carcass, the foil, the string and the fat is a jackpot, and cooked bones splinter into shards that pierce or jam. Fatty trimmings are the classic route to pancreatitis, a painful and very common holiday admission. Put the carcass in a lidded outside bin before you sit down, and ask guests not to feed scraps, because six people each slipping the dog something adds up to a second dinner.

A guest's overnight bag on the spare bed, with ibuprofen or a weekly pill dispenser in the side pocket, is one of the commonest holiday poisonings. Ask visitors to keep medication zipped away and high up. Button batteries deserve the same care: musical cards, remotes and cheap toys all contain them, and a swallowed one can burn through the oesophagus within hours. That is a drop-everything emergency, and do not try to make your pet vomit. Some snow globes contain ethylene glycol, lethal in tiny amounts and sweet-tasting, so clear a broken one straight away.

Candles need supervising or replacing with the LED sort, because a tail passing over a flame is silent and the cat often does not react until the fur catches. Liquid potpourri is caustic to a cat who walks through a spill and then grooms. Of the seasonal plants, be absolute about lilies: any part of any true lily, including pollen brushed onto a coat, can cause fatal kidney failure in a cat. If one arrives in a bouquet it goes straight back out. Amaryllis, mistletoe and holly berries want keeping out of reach too.

Building the quiet room before anyone arrives

Set this up a few days early, not while twelve people are taking their coats off. Choose a room with a door that shuts, off the main route to the loo. Put in a familiar bed, water, a litter tray for cats, something that smells of you, and a radio on low. Leave the door open beforehand so it becomes somewhere they already choose to be.

Then use it. Settle them in before the doorbell starts rather than after they are wound up, with a stuffed frozen toy for the first half hour. Put a note on the door so nobody wanders in, and be firm with the guest who wants to say hello to the cat, because that guest is why the cat spends two days under the bed. Dogs do better walked before people arrive, then fed, then settled while the house is at its loudest.

Front doors get opened by people who have never met your escape artist, so check the collar tag is readable and the microchip details are up to date, which for most of us they are not. New Year adds fireworks: close the curtains, put music on, and let a frightened dog hide where it wants rather than hauling it out to be reassured. If last year was bad, ring the vet in November.

None of this makes for a joyless house. It is a walk round with a bin bag, one hook in the wall, and a door that shuts.