What do Cavaliers think of Christmas decorations?

This is my first Christmas with having dogs. I was just wondering how you all manage with keeping the dogs away from the decorations/tree/presents, etc. Any advice would be helpful.

Ah yes, I made the mistake of leaving her majesty alone in the dining area last year,with freshly wrapped pressies under the tree.....
One word comes to mind....carnage!!
She tore the wrapping,chewed the boxes but thankfully didn't swallow or choke on any ribbons or bows.
Lesson learned: Cavaliers = toddlers
She'll bark at cut out santas but doesn't mind the tree or the decorations,although if any wooden baubles fell off the tree they'd be pounced upon.
I think keep them away if you can and keep cables and flexes well away and from what I understand keep away from holly berries.
otherwise enjoy!
Sins

I was just thinking of asking the same question myself!! Oz is 17 months old, but will still destroy pencils, pens, etc if left within his reach and nobody is around. Last year at Christmas he was so well supervised when I was home, and when I went out, he was in his crate. He hasn't been in his crate now though for about a month, so I don't have that security. I was thinking about putting the X-pen around the tree when I'm not home. Last year I also made sure that I didn't hang any ornaments really low and for some reason he left the ribbons and packages alone. I fear this year will be different. Other than the X-Pen idea, I am stumped. Hopefully someone else will come up with some words of wisdom. My three older ones are fine with all the decorations and leave everything alone.

I am dreading this year... Lily our westie was brilliant last year - i had even put 'doggie chew candy canes' on the tree last year and all she would do is look lovingly at me and turn in circles every evening til i gave her one (very cute!)

this year we have Bailey also who happens to be full of beans at the moment. We wiill do like last year and not leave them on their own with the tree, and when i am out at work they stay in the kitchen anyways so fingers crossed it won't be pure carnage, but i do have a horrible feeling that Bailey may just decide that it will be fun to do 'circuits' round the tree....

We just put our tree up last weekend and already have a bunch of wrapped presents underneath, and so far (knock on wood!) the dogs have been fine. I was really worried because I made my own gift tags this year and I would have been really mad if they were destroyed! Truman initially picked up a small present in his mouth, but after we told him "no" he has been fine ever since. With 2 dogs and 2 cats we were worried about the tree and presents, but so far so good! I hope I'm not emailing back in a week or two retracting my statement! :lol:

We put our tree in the dining room where it's safe from the cats and dogs

I will sound the safety note here -- I would definitely not leave dogs home alone with access to the tree, or home without direct supervision. Simply close the doors to that room -- or put the dogs in a room rather than a crate. My dogs never are allowed the run of the house -- they stay in a room when I am out. Nicer than a crate, but safe.

I cannot warn about this enough: eating ornaments, tinsel, ribbon etc is a common holiday-time cause of injury and death for both dogs and cats -- long strands of ribbon or tinsel can entwine around an intestine and cause a very painful death. So can eating broken (glass or plastic or wood) ornaments. Cord-chewing is also very dangerous. The surgery to save an animal is very expensive and invasive. Much better to simply put the animals somewhere safe, and keep an xpen around the tree as necessary. Puppies are much more likely to go for tree items and presents than adult dogs but I would not trust a dog alone of any age with a tree and trimmings.

None of my dogs is remotely interested in trees or packages, but I wouldn't leave them unsupervised with either.

So far Belle has shown zero interest in the tree so maybe we are lucky. She is definitely not a chewer though. Might hold off on putting presents under the tree for another couple of weeks just to be on the safe side.

Last year we were minding my sisters rabbit for a few weeks over Christmas and made the fatal mistake of letting have the run of the living room when we were there. He chewed through about 6 sets of lights and the power cable off my sons Nintendo DS

I must keep that in mind to maybe pop Belle into a different room to the tree when we are out, just in case she takes a notion to start chewing on a glitter coated bauble or something

We put a 24inch high x-pen around our Christmas tree, and I bought lots of those plastic ornaments that look like glass (nice ones at Target). I hang the ornaments with ribbons rather than wire hooks. I found the ribbon hangers at Kmart where the Martha Stewart ornaments are.

I never leave presents under the tree after my last dog Leo would 'unwrap' anything that might smell like food! - even when he was old!!

This year I'm wondering what to do as Cass never has touched the tree or anything but Sparks is pretty wild at times & I can imagine him trying to climb it! Ive made sure all bawbles (sp?) are plastic rather than glass ones - will make sure they are attatched really well too. I do allways have the tree in the living room & the dogs are kitchen based when we're not there but given that Sparks gets excited about everything I can only imagin the carnage in the house!!

Yep agree even if they are not usually chewers don't leave them with any access to *any* decorations even a wreath accross the sitting room window with little berries on it and those little fluffy angels defo look like dog toys On a serious note - make sure if anyone gives you a pressie of chocolate not to leave it under the tree as do know of one dog that became very sick after opening up the pressie and helping themselves You can teach them a 'leave it' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzzR7IhCGHc for when you are home but when you are out don't trust them

Well ours cant be trusted with anything, I only popped out for 5 minutes yesterday and Junior had eaten one of the decorative pine cones from the tree!! little monster lol. And the mail...oh dont even get me started! lets just say, he deals with he bills..."sorry i cant pay, the dog ate my gas bill..." LOL

Oh gosh. I hope the decorative pine cones hurt less coming out than real ones do. Maggie learned that lesson the hard way! She was fine thank goodness. But definitely sore.

I think this year will be fine because Max is so young he won't be unsupervised anyway. I doubt we will put any presents under the tree because I think we would spend all of our time saying "leave it". We'll see - we haven't got the tree up yet.

I stopped buying tinsel when we first became pet owners (had a cat at the time) - it's just to hard to keep it where it's put.

Charlie does not seem to mind our tree or decorations. But I did have Boyd's Bear sitting out around the house that I had to put away. He thought they were his. He is also not left for along time by himself in the house. I think that helps.