No Food for Pets
There will be no shortage of food and drinks available during Thanksgiving dinner, but that doesn’t mean you should share it with your pets. Many of the ingredients used in everyday cooking and baking, such as onion, garlic, and chocolate, can be highly toxic to your pet, even life-threatening. We all know that cooked turkey bones can splinter and cause intestinal blockage, inflammation, and abdominal pain which may lead to an emergency clinic which will ruin everyone’s evening.

Poison Risks
Overindulging in the family feast can be unhealthy for humans, but even worse for pets: Fatty foods are hard for animals to digest. Poultry bones can damage your pet’s digestive tract. And holiday sweets can contain ingredients that are poisonous to pets.

The following is what Pyne sees most often in insurance claims post-Thanksgiving:

• Gastroenteritis from eating unfamiliar and seasoned people foods.
• Acute pancreatitis from eating large amounts of fatty foods, like dark turkey meat, turkey skin, ham or cheeses.
• Intoxication from xylitol from eating food with this sugar substitute (sugar-free); from chocolate, since dogs are not able to metabolize theobromine and caffeine; and from raisins, currant or grapes, which can be toxic to dogs.