Christmas and Pets

giantmutantbroccoli

As far as I can tell from the websites on the subject (including the ones you cite beachbeth!) there is nothing inherently dangerous in turkey skin itself. Any high-fat content meal could cause pancreatitis. A scrap of turkey skin given to a medium-large dog would be fine. The skin off an entire turkey given to a little yorkshire terrier would not be fine - the qantities are relative to the size of the dog. If you gave a whole turkey's worth of skin to a toy-sized dog you've effectively given it an entire meal of the stuff, and any skin - not just turkey skin- is very high in fat content, and could therefore cause pancreatitis.

If you regularly give your dog a variety of food scraps it's unlikely that they will develop a tummy upset if you give them some bits of christmas dinner with their normal food, just don't feed tham anything you wouldn't normally regard as being okay for dogs to eat - no chocolate, xmas pudding, buttery mash potatoes etc (I have no idea what sort of maniac would give a dog sprouts. Someone with no nose?).

If a dog eats a small amount of turkey skin, then develops pancreatitis it doesn't necessarily follow that the turkey caused the disease. It would be a more common problem at Christmas, though, as dogs are more likely to be given other high-fat treats at those times.
Not to mention that if someone comes into the surgery with a sick dog and is asked "What did you feed him?" they're unlikely to say that he's been eating nothing but brandy butter and deep-fried mince pies for the past couple of days.

Anyway! If you want to keep cats off your tree, take the lights off it and hang some jingly bells/ornaments on it. The noise it makes when it falls over shoudl scare the beejeezus out of them!
Of course they may not want to go near the tree after that.

Buttonmoons

Myssinic wrote: »

:rotfl:
my 5.5k maine coon still thinks he's a kitten. The tree was lovely the first night it went up, now its in it's usual state, tinsel everywhere, big cat shaped hole and a pair of eyes looking out... approach with caution!

I am refusing to let mine destroy the tree this year, I went and bought a new one so I'm not allowing them to make a nest in it......this year!

I stupidly went out and left them the run of the house as usual, came home to my tree on the floor, baubles everywhere (I even found some in the bath:rolleyes:) Tinsel had been dragged throughout the house and one of them (I know fine which one it was!) chewed through my new Xmas tree lights (They were turned off luckily!)

So they are now bannished from the living room when no-one is in, or everyone is asleep, must to the youngest cats disgust, he has started ripping up my carpet....

You can't win or have a nice Xmas tree!!

walwin

I do find OP very misleading.

Turkey is not a fatty meat.

Feeding turkey skin is a bad idea as is feeding chicken skin, but turkey meat itself is actually low fat

lisawood78

My girls (Great Danes) will be having a few turkey scraps on Christmas day in their dinner (no skin or bones) and i'm sure they will relish it.
Am sure they will help finish of the excess veggies too, they adore veg, but of course just small amounts of these things.
Can't wait.

lostinrates

My meat eaters get turkey too ''Scraps'' shouldn't replace a meal, nor be given in excess, just as we shouldn't swap an essentially healthy roast bird lunch for a day of chocolate and alcohol: a small supplement of (non toxic) leftovers for a normal weight pet in good health shouldn't cause a nightmare.

foreign_correspondent

I have had pancreatitis - I have never experienced pain like it, it was excrutiating, and it went on for days... I could not stand up because of the pain - I ended up in hospital on a drip for over a week. Having experienced this, I would never knowingly feed my dog anything that could cause this condition.

We have chicken, not turkey, but any left over fat here goes in the bin, not the dog! As for lean meat, I cannot find any evidence that lean turkey is dangerous, I think it is most likely fatty skin that is the problem.

elfen

My mum's dogs have always had a bit of Xmas dinner, and none of them got ill or died from it (4 dogs and my lifetime - 26 years) AND they get the jelly thats made from the juices and they adore it

wannabepennypincher

Buttonmoons wrote: »

I don't think you'll ever escape cats destroying your xmas tree :rotfl: No matter what age! My Nana has 7 (yes 7!) cats, and the worst one for attacking her tree, is the oldest and fattest one, it becomes a kitten again when it sees those dangly baubles and shiny tinsel! At least when they are kittens they might not weigh enough to knock it over.....(mines have already done that!)

The littlest has just turned 1 but they will always be 'the kittens'. So far this month he has tore down the shower curtain (again!) and managed to pull the curtains of the hook. His baby antics aren't as funny now he is big enough to cause actual damage, he used to hang from the curtains about halfway up while his partner in crime sat at the bottom moving it from side to side. I put up some transfers but they are shredded to pieces as they got in the way of his birdwatching. My nieghbours must see my house and think I am scrooge.

Buttonmoons

Yep my kitten is almost 1 now too, and weighs about 5kg. He's VERY intelligent though, he knows when he is being told off and delibrately (I swear it is!) runs off and starts jumping up my walls and doors as he knows I chase after him! He does that when he wants attention too, people must think I'm a right ragger when they see the wallpaper hanging off in the bathroom (everywhere else is painted thank god!) having his doodahs off didn't calm him down either, the same night he got home from the vets, he seen a spider on the ceiling, climbed the curtains and got it. NUTS!

beachbeth

walwin wrote: »

I do find OP very misleading.

I did say in the first post that it was the turkey skin that you shouldn't give your dog. Its only if your dog isn't used to turkey and always just has the normal pet foods that you shouldn't risk giving him/her any turkey meat as they won't be used to it. This goes for any new food. Why risk it on Christmas day?

I give my own dog a few turkey titbits as I said before and I know they are fine with this. However, they don't have a whole bowlful and they certainly don't get anywhere near any bones no matter how sad and hungry they try to look!:p