The holiday season is upon us! If you have a new puppy joining you for the festivities this year, we’re sharing our go-to puppy prep advice, safety tips and food list to ensure your puppy’s first Thanksgiving is a happy and worry-free time for the whole family!
The Puppy Academy student: Thurman!
Thanksgiving, a day many of us look forward to for weeks with mouth-watering anticipation. One of those holidays when you can really kick back and enjoy spending time with family.
Our puppies are no exception to the excitement that Thanksgiving has to offer! But as exciting as it is, it can also be a time that can cause distress for your puppy. Think about it from a little puppy’s perspective: new people, lots of movement and sounds, and...the smells!
And if you are like the rest of the nation hosting family or friends over, you have a dozen or so things going at once, including ensuring the safety of your puppy. Just like your dinner, the best thing you can do to care for your puppy in this case is come prepared with a plan for them the day of!
New situations always present risk factors, but when you follow the same helpful tips we share with our students and their parents at our puppy training school, the only thing you’ll need to worry about for your pup’s first Thanksgiving is enjoying the feast and feeling grateful!
Can My Puppy Eat Thanksgiving Dinner?
The short answer: kind of! Although we recommend sticking to your pup’s normal diet, if you do want to treat them to something festive, your pup most certainly can enjoy a version of a Thanksgiving meal. However, certain foods aren’t good for their young digestive systems and can even be toxic. So, to help you decipher what is safe and what isn’t, we put together an easy-to-follow infographic with the dos and don’ts when it comes to Thanksgiving food for your puppy. Don’t forget to save it for future reference!
Making Sure Your Puppy is Satisfied & Safe
With so much prep work that goes into Thanksgiving dinner, it’s super easy to forget that your puppy’s needs aren’t on hold just for the holiday. They still require care, attention, and above all: security! Develop a day-of plan for your puppy and consider including the following:
1. Exercise Your Puppy in the Morning
If you’re planning on hosting or even bringing food to a family member’s home, prioritize your puppy’s needs first before getting into the weeds of Thanksgiving prep. Give your puppy plenty of time to burn off some of their excess energy in the morning with a walk, interactive playtime session, and make sure to include puppy training for mental stimulation that will leave them feeling fulfilled and ready for a nap. By providing your puppy the right type of exercise and structure, they’ll be in the right, calm mental state for the rest of the day, which will give you more time to focus on getting your meal and home ready.
Grab our go-to training routines that will satisfy your pup while teaching good behaviors in our Online Puppy School!
2. Ask for Help!
If you’re hosting Thanksgiving dinner, chances are you will be running around with a million things on your list to get done. Avoid finding yourself in a situation where you can’t tend to your attention-seeking puppy and instead enlist the help of a trusted family member or friend to watch over your puppy while you are prepping dinner.
Hand them your daily puppy schedule to follow to keep your puppy on track and take our any guesswork of wondering what your puppy needs and when.
If you can’t enlist the help of others, your pup’s crate and playpen will be your BFFs today!
3. Keep Your Puppy’s Crate Readily Available
The crate is your puppy’s safety zone. With so many people coming and going, excited talking, loud music, and new smells, all that stimulation can get overwhelming for a little puppy. Keep their crate in a quiet, stress-free area of your home so your pup can escape to relax to and get their much needed down time.
Puppies can get overwhelmed and energized by all the activity happening around them, so some crate time throughout the day to help them settle and get the rest they need will help prevent your puppy from exhibiting anxious behaviors!
And in times throughout the day where you can’t supervise your puppy while cooking, socializing, or eating dinner, your puppy’s crate is also the perfect place to keep them in so they are safe and you can let your pup-parent guard down and enjoy.
Bringing your puppy with your to your family’s house? Take their crate! Your pup will benefit from having their familiar space in a different environment, especially if they need a break from the other dogs and small children that may be running around!
4. Be Aware of Your Puppy’s Safety
If you are hosting Thanksgiving and are expecting guests, chances are some of them may not be so puppy-mindful as you are.
Forgetting to shut doors, feeding food from the table and leaving dangerous items (ie. alcoholic beverages, chocolate desserts, sharp utensils, etc.) within puppy-reach can all lead to an accident waiting to happen.
Tethering your puppy to you with their leash and utilizing their playpen and crate will help keep your pup out of harm’s way.
For more puppy safety tips for Thanksgiving, watch our short video:
5. Don’t Pause on your Puppy Training!
Puppy training shouldn't take a break for Thanksgiving! This is a quick way for puppies to regress and start picking up bad habits. Instead, use it as a great opportunity to reinforce your pup's good manners by enlisting your guests to help. For example, have your guests greet your puppy when they're (both!) in a calmer state, and remind them to only pet your pup when all four paws are on the floor to discourage jumping up. Giving attention and affection while your puppy is jumping all over your guests will only encourage more of that behavior, and make training more difficult, even if it's just for one day!
6. No Table Scraps!
Another important situation to watch out for is family and friends sneaking your puppy some Thanksgiving goodies from the table. Of course, we want our puppies to celebrate along with us, but it’s important to remember that their tummies are sensitive. AND feeding from the table sets up a terrible habit of begging that can be difficult to reverse! Richly seasoned foods can cause them to get upset, but more so, they could accidentally ingest food that is not safe for them and can be harmful to their health. The last thing you want is to make an emergency vet visit on Thanksgiving! Make sure to save the infographic with safe and not safe Thanksgiving Day foods for your puppy, and put your puppy in the crate while you’re at the table to eat.
7. Clean Up Before Your Puppy Does it for You!
Puppies can be opportunists so the best way to prevent them from getting into leftovers, table scraps, and fallen food pieces on the floor is keeping your pup away from the dining table and cleaning up right away! Utilize barriers like puppy gates or a playpen if they’re out of their crate, or keep them in a different area away from Thanksgiving dinner if necessary!
8. End Thanksgiving on a Calm Note
With so much happening on Thanksgiving, let your puppy unwind by giving them their favorite chew toy to enjoy, taking a short walk together, or doing a little calm-down training session to help get them settle for the evening. Ending the day with a low-intensity exercise can help your puppy relax from the overstimulation of the day’s events that they’re not accustomed to, so you can all sleep well tonight!
Have more questions about Thanksgiving safety and tips for your puppy? Ask our trainers LIVE every Wednesday at 1 pm PT on our Instagram @thepuppyacademy during the Ask A Puppy Trainer Show! All replays are posted afterward, and you can catch up on our last ones on our YouTube channel!
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From our family of pups to yours, have a Happy Thanksgiving!
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