By Sarah Folmar, Brand Communications Specialist
I remember getting magazines in college and reading about surviving the holidays. We all have strange families, but how were these people not enjoying their time off? They had children. That’s how. Now don’t get me wrong. Having a baby is wonderful. Babies are adorable and my son continues to amaze me every day that we spend together. But babies are a lot of work. And so are my dogs. And so is my family. While some people may talk about what they are thankful for while sitting around a pleasant meal, my brothers swap war stories and we fight over who is going to get the good parts of the turkey. I might be smaller, but when it comes to turkey I am a full-blown dinner warrior.
Back to my point: Having children can make the holidays difficult. Having pets on top of it all can make this even harder to handle, but that’s where PetSafe® can help! 
Sheeba makes sure baby Dylan is enjoying the holiday decorating. If you are planning on having family at your house, your pets may be adjusted to having visitors to where this is not an issue. If you are a crazy person like me, you travel hours with your family (including the pets, of course) and stay out of town to see your loved ones. The first part of this struggle is getting to our location without one of the dogs crying the entire trip, or eating part of a crate (yes, this happened).
A great solution is a durable toy filled with something yummy. The Busy Buddy® Squirrel Dude™ is a great fix in this situation. It comes in a variety of sizes, and you can fill it with peanut butter to keep your dog entertained for hours. It’s nice to have one less living creature crying in the car.
For those of you who have pets that assume your tree is just a staging area for funny-looking toys, we can help with that, too. Our ScatMat® Curved Mat can be placed in front of your tree, without any cords needed. Of course there’s an option for a cord if you’d like it, but having one less thing to trip over is always great for me. It delivers a harmless static pulse if touched, so this works for us since the baby is not yet crawling.
If you do have curious children that like to touch everything, what can you do to keep your pets from getting into the holiday decorations? Well, we’ve also got our Pawz Away® Mini Pet Barrier and Pawz Away® Indoor Pet Barrier. Your pet will wear one of the Pawz Away® collars, and the barrier transmitter will deliver a static correction to the collar if your pet is too close. Both products are compatible with our YardMax™ Rechargeable In-Ground Fence™ as well!
Can anyone say Christmas present ideas? These products are all light-weight enough to bring with you if you are traveling, but can also be used permanently in your home. Sheeba, our Shiba Inu, is a trash connoisseur, and putting one of our ScatMat® products in front of the trashcan keeps us from a very sticky mess. Sheeba isn’t always thrilled when we curve her bad habits, but she also doesn’t enjoy seeing the doctor, so we are really helping her out.
Happy Holidays from baby Dylan! I hope that these products have given you some ideas on how to keep your pets out of mischief this year, and how to maintain some sense of normalcy if your family is a little out of control at the moment.
Now our next step will be how to deal with your in-laws, but that is a different story. For a highly trained professional. Happy holiday sesason!
