Christmas and pets: what is genuinely dangerous, and what is not

More than eight in ten UK companion animal vets reported seeing at least one case of toxic ingestion over a single Christmas period. It is the busiest poisoning season of the year, and almost all of it is preventable.

Here is what genuinely matters, separated from what gets repeated every December and is not as serious as people think.

The one that kills cats, and almost nobody knows

Lilies. Every part of the plant is highly toxic to cats and causes acute kidney failure. Pollen brushed onto the fur and then groomed off is enough. So is water from the vase.

This is not a mild irritant. It is the single most dangerous common houseplant for a cat, and lilies arrive in half the bouquets given at Christmas.

If you have a cat, do not have lilies in the house. Not out of reach, not in another room. If a lily arrives in a bouquet, take it out. If you think your cat has had any contact with one, that is an immediate emergency vet call, not a wait-and-see.

The food list

• Chocolate. The theobromine is the problem, and the darker the chocolate the more of it there is. Dark and cooking chocolate are far worse than milk. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhoea, tremors and seizures. Selection boxes left under a tree are the classic case, because the dog can smell it through the wrapping and you cannot.
• Raisins, sultanas and currants. Which means Christmas pudding, mince pies, Christmas cake and stollen. These cause kidney failure in dogs, and the alarming part is that the toxic dose is unpredictable — some dogs are badly affected by a very small amount. There is no safe quantity to reassure yourself with.
• Xylitol (also labelled birch sugar), in sugar-free sweets, some peanut butters and baking. Causes a rapid crash in blood sugar leading to weakness, collapse and seizures, and can cause liver failure.
• Onions, garlic, leeks and chives, including cooked into stuffing and gravy. Damages red blood cells, and the effect is cumulative rather than immediate.
• Cooked bones. Turkey carcass bones splinter. Bin bags need to be genuinely inaccessible, not just tied.
• Alcohol, including cream liqueurs, which taste pleasant to a dog and are far more dangerous than their size suggests.

Decorations

Tinsel and ribbon are the serious ones, particularly for cats. Swallowed string-like material causes what vets call a linear foreign body: one end lodges while the intestine keeps trying to move the rest, which can saw through the gut wall. It is major emergency surgery and it is common.

Cats are drawn to tinsel specifically. If you have a cat, the simplest answer is not to use it.

Also worth thinking about: glass baubles at tail height, fairy light cables for a puppy in a chewing phase, and the tree water if you have added preservative.

Overstated, for balance

Poinsettia has a reputation far worse than it deserves. It causes mouth irritation, drooling and sometimes vomiting. It is unpleasant, not usually dangerous. Keep it out of reach, but do not panic if a leaf gets chewed.

Holly and mistletoe are more of a concern than poinsettia, mistletoe berries especially, but neither is in the lily category.

The part people forget: the noise and the people

Poisoning gets the headlines, but a fortnight of visitors, doorbells, crackers and disrupted routine is genuinely stressful for a lot of animals.

• Make sure there is a room the animal can retreat to that nobody goes into, and tell visiting children it is out of bounds
• Keep feeding and walking times as normal as you can manage
• Cats in particular should have a high place to watch from and an escape route that does not pass through the party. An enclosed bed such as a tunnel bed gives them somewhere to sit it out with two ways back out, which matters more than comfort does on a day like that
• Crackers and party poppers are startling in the same way fireworks are — our guide to firework fear applies almost word for word
• Ask guests not to feed the dog. One person doing it discreetly is how most Christmas Day vomiting starts

If a cat starts toileting outside the tray during all this, it is stress rather than protest — our guide on a cat not using the litter tray covers what to check and what makes it worse.

Have the number ready

Find your vet's emergency number and the nearest out-of-hours practice before Christmas Eve, and put it somewhere you can find it at 11pm on a bank holiday.

If your animal eats something on this list, ring immediately rather than waiting for symptoms. With chocolate, raisins and lilies especially, treatment is far more effective before the animal becomes unwell. Take the packaging with you — the vet needs to know quantity and type, and guessing wastes time that matters.