Today, on the threshold of the festive season, we’ll deal with food intake, or rather, what not to feed your pet(s) at Christmas. Well, with Christmas around the corner the imbibing and engorging has already begun. Or course, I am referring to us humans. It seems that as we stuff ourselves, we feel that our canine and feline wards must get ‘Christmas’ too. Dogs get chocolate and biscuits (you know, the ones Auntie has sent in a tin from overseas), cats get, ‘Fancy Feast’ and all sorts of Leckerbissen that produce unneeded calories.
I want to believe that if I did a statistical analysis of my records, it would show that, around this time of year, animals presented in the clinic are predominantly suffering from food related maladies. It seems as if we feel compelled to share out culinary bounties with our pets. So Rover gets pepperpot with ‘nuff’ bones to gnaw on, and Felix gets curried chicken. No one stops to think that casareep might be bad for the dog and that spices in curry could give the cat a bad stomach. May I humbly suggest that our pets do not understand or care to be educated about the theological implications and scriptural significance of Christmas.
They just would prefer their ordinary, bland, relatively spiceless fare, namely, the food that is offered every single day during the year. May I further propose that you do not get angry with ‘Brown Dog’ and ‘Kitty’ when they turn up their noses at your haute cuisine which you may have spent hours preparing. After all, it has not been proven that pets have a