Puppies and Christmas trees?

[WTFwasthat]

How?!

We didn't.

I think if we had to, I'd get a small tree and put it on top of a table where pup couldn't reach.

Goes without saying that whatever you do DONT adorn with chocolate decorations.

We have an artificial tree which our dog ignored till last year when twice he left a 'present' under it. He doesn't mess in the house as a rule, it was odd and slightly amusing (fortunately they were hard not messy ones). Think we'll give the lower branches a spray with deterrent stuff this year!

Don't go together, just one more thing to chew and destroy!

Ours has always been fine , but we don't have a real tree and we put the tree in the conservatory so it can be closed off when he is not being supervised. We have a tradition of putting Christmas animals around the tree and these are more of a draw for our dog .

And another obv point, if you do pressies under the tree (or a pile elsewhere) keep anything edible and any dog toys somewhere else out of reach.

We had a real tree (a non-drop needle one) when our girl was a pup she was fine, she barked at it when it first came in the house but apart from that she ignored it.

We didn't put one up when pup was 6 months old... or any other decorations either! We just didn't wnt to risk it! We have an artificial tree anyway, so put it on a table with stuff in front when he was 18months. That was successful. This year we will probably get away with putting more decorations up, but nothing too long and dangly like when we used to hang Christmas cards down either side of the double-doorway between the living room and the dining room!

Remember that swallowing tinsel can also be very dangerous....

We have one of these which we put round the tree when our previous dog was a puppy. We have a puppy now who will be 8 months, and assuming he will be a pickle with the tree, which I expect he will, we'll do the same.

Not exactly pretty, but functional!

Use it as an opportunity to teach 'leave it'?

And train to not trash the house?

When we have young dogs (younger than 2ish yrs), we decorate as normal - there tends to be nothing unusual to grab at low down and use an unfolding play pen to fence off the tree if we go out.

If we're there, they remember they've been trained to leave it alone. If we are out, I don't want to run the risk they might forget. It is too easy to have a disaster. We have never put anything edible on or under the tree - these dogs have v, v good noses and it would be asking for trouble!

flowery , that isva great idea. i was considering a fire guard thing but that is better. i might look in the local paper

We used the playpen, an oldfashioned square wooden one that had already done three family's worth of sterling service. It keeps toddlers out the tree too! And catches needles and keeps presents safe... what's not to like?

You don't know till you try. Dragon dog was a Xmas puppy and fine with the tree.

Hullypuppy will be getting the oppurtunity to discover yet more forbidden things

We bought a cheap Lack table from IKEA (they are really cheap, like £7) and put the tree on that. She was 10 months old last Xmas - this year I think we could get away with placing the tree on the floor

feesh Great Minds!

We bought a £5 table from ikea last weekend to put the tree on .

I'm planning to cut down an old plastic Christmas table cloth to cover the thing, it'll make it into a cube so he can't get under it and should keep him away from the light wires.

I have 5dogs :) Ellie (sbt) is 5months old so will be Interesting to see what she makes of it. Will have to invest in a dog stair gate for when I pop out as she can jump the baby gate as found out yesterday. I deliver the weekly newspapers, came home yesterday to 200 in bits all over my living room

When our dog was a puppy we thought he was fab around the tree - good as gold. Discovered differently when he pooed glitter and tinsly threads for days...