Christmas & New Year's Eve Safety

As you know by now, everything new, shiny, crinkly or with an interesting smell, will at some point or another attract the interest of your Havanese.

Try to imagine Christmas or New Year's Eve from a dawg's point of view. Furniture is moved around to make room for the tree or accommodate guests. Decorations are on display.

All sorts of people are coming and going and some are even sleeping over. There are sounds that are unfamiliar and you are busier than usual.

PS: We know this as our two sons have come and gone back to school.

How do you both cope?

Stay calm. You can get stressed out during the holidays, and your Havanese picks up on your stress. He looks to you as the alpha leader. If you are calm, he is calm.

Make sure you spend quality time with your Havanese. A bored dawg can equal trouble. It's not that your dawg intends on creating trouble but if you are too busy, well there are things to do and places to be that maybe your Havanese shouldn't. Some of those can be toxic or deadly.

Play with your dog before your party. If you tire him out, he’ll be too tired to get into any mischief when your guests arrive. If that is not possible, hire a dog walker or take him to doggie daycare.

Try not to use toothpicks for hors d’oeurves because your Havanese can eat the toothpicks if they are dropped on the floor and they can get stuck in his throat or puncture his internal organs.

Be especially careful opening your front door when you are greeting guests and also with delivery people so your dog doesn’t dash out.

Block off your Xmas tree or place it on a table. Keeping the water, tinsel, lights and bulbs away from your Havanese is important. As an extra protection, Keep your dawg from drinking the water by covering the tree basin with a tree skirt.

Ask your guests not to feed your dog or let him drink any of their drinks.

To prevent your dog from knocking over your holiday tree, anchor it with cord or wire to the ceiling directly above the tree's trunk. Don't attach it with wire to a wall behind the tree because your dog could get caught in the wire if be darts behind the tree.

Hang your ornaments with ribbons rather than hooks to keep your dog from accidentally swallowing something that could get lodged in his throat.

Do not use tinsel or angel hair on your tree. Angel hair, made of glass fiber, and tinsel, made of metal, can cause internal damage if your dog swallows any.

There are so many other safety tips I could cover but use your common sense. Our Havanese are precious beings that deserve that extra attention to safety that you should give. They also deserve quality time.

We, at Talemaker Havanese hope you have a safe an amazing Christmas and Happy New Year.

Our celebrations will be entirely dawg related with family, friends and visitors alike but it's as usual in this house where the dawgs count!

We have had a full day with Bailey playing heavily with Cesar, Abigail, Fiona and Treasure and Cesar playing with everyone. Tomorrow we have many dawgie guests just for the day. Kit Kat is coming while Nathan and her owner goes to the vet, Yvonne and crew will be coming while she goes to the doctor. Full house indeed but then they will be gone by mid afternoon.

Watch for photos tomorrow after our busy day is done. I am truly adoring watching and playing with the dawgs. It's a slice of heaven - I tell you!