As more and more holiday decorations are going up, there are certain kinds that can cause health issues for pets.

Companion Veterinary Clinic of Greene County Owner and Veterinarian Dr. Christy Fields says cats love to play with strings and sometimes shallow them. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio using ribbons to wrap presents and tinsel on Christmas trees are popular items that cats like, but can cause issues for them.

“If they shallow a good chunk of those, we can end up with what we call a linear foreign body and that can be pretty dangerous.”

Dr. Fields recommends if there are homemade decorations on trees that were dough-like items that dried hard, to place them higher on the tree to keep away from dogs, due to the high levels of salt being harmful to canines. She describes one preventative tip to keep cats from going onto a tree is by putting foil on the bottom, which cats do not like to walk on, as well as this other tactic.

“They make these little sprayers, I think they’re called scat sprayers, they actually are motion-censored. It’s a can of condensed air and when the cat goes near that area it’ll spray and it will scare them, and sometimes that will deter them from going around the Christmas tree.”

Dr. Fields suggests anchoring trees to the wall will help prevent them from being knocked over by cats as well.