Holiday foods not always safe for our pets..

The holidays bring delicious baked goods, confections and other rich, fattening foods. People love them, but they can be very harmful to pets. Some of the most common dangerous holiday foods are chocolate and cocoa, sugarless gum and candy containing xylitol, leftover fatty meat scraps, yeast bread dough and fruit cake. Particularly dangerous, fruit cake often contains raisins and currants, which can result in kidney failure if ingested by a dog. Some fruitcakes are also soaked in rum, resulting in alcohol poisoning; when ingested by a dog or cat, it can cause a dangerous drop in blood sugar, blood pressure and body temperature, potentially leading to seizures and respiratory failure.

During the holidays, it is best to keep pets on their regular diets, and it is perfectly acceptable to discourage holiday guests from feeding them any human food.