My Top Tips for Calm and Happy Animals at Christmas
Nov 21, 2024
Do you recognise that your energy changes in the build up to Christmas and over the Christmas period? You may be feeling more stressed, distracted, excited, anxious and be rushing to fit everything in?
What you may not realise is that your animals may be picking up on these extra emotions and wondering what has changed. It can result in animals behaving differently to their normal pattern of behaviour over the Christmas period and perhaps seeming more tired, snappy, hiding away or not resting in their usual way.
I have 5 top tips to help you to help your animals during the festive season.
- This may sound daft, but tell your animals what the holiday schedule looks like. If you are travelling with them, or leaving them at home for some time or having guests over, let them know. In my experience, it really does seem to help them to cope, if they know what's happening and when.
- Plan ahead to allow extra rest time for your animals. If you know it's going to be busy in your home with lots of extra people and excitement, make sure you have a room your animal can go to with their bed, to rest by themselves for some of the day.
- Most animals thrive on their usual routine and this can be tricky to maintain over Christmas. The more you can keep to their routine of mealtimes and walks etc, the easier they will find it to cope with all the extra activity going on around them and the happier they will be.
- Having a calming essential oil to hand can be a great help for everyone. Offer for inhalation only from the bottle and cover the top of the bottle when offering to a cat, to avoid any direct physical contact with the oil. Lavender is a great choice for most animals and can help to calm you too.
- Be aware if you are using Christmas scents in your home, that many animals can be overwhelmed by strong fragrances and clove in particular can be a really difficult oil for dogs and cats to process. Clove essential oil is best avoided if you have a cat. Diffusing or burning oils at home can be relaxing for the humans, but can start to create stress for animals if they don't need or like that particular oil and cannot escape from the fragrance.
I hope you find these tips helpful. Please feel free to ask me any questions about any aspect of this. I wish you and your animals a very Merry and Happy Christmas.
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