[BassetHounds&QuarterHorses]

Before I ask my question, I will share with you a Basset Story from last Christmas. By the weekend after Thanksgiving, I had the Christmas tree up, the presents wrapped and under it, house decorated, everything. We did not have Dottie at the time, just Flash. Flash never touched a present. A week before Christmas, we had a get-together with friends, in which Flash watched gifts being opened.

The following day, my fiance and I went out, and returned to find Flash had opened about 3/4s of the gifts under the tree. We are guessing he would have opened them ALL, but when we walked in he was snoozing in a bed of wrapping paper, guess he got tired! The living room looked like a bomb had gone off but we just stood there and laughed. He went for weeks not touching a present, but then he saw us opening gifts, and decided to do the same.

Now to my question. Have any of you used that spray stuff that is supposed to deter pets from going around certain things? I was thinking about trying it around the tree to deter the hounds from opening gifts when we are gone this year.

 

[vienneau4]

I've never used it for dogs before, but I have tried it on cats. It definetly didn't work!!

 

[Aruuuu]

Do you mean Bitter Apple? It's always worked at our house. Another suggestion is to block the tree area from the hounds, either by gating off the door to the room where the tree is or by placing an ex-pen around the tree.......

 

[Mikey T]

Now to my question. Have any of you used that spray stuff that is supposed to deter pets from going around certain things? I was thinking about trying it around the tree to deter the hounds from opening gifts when we are gone this year.
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Round here it is a condiment.

 

[Maggie's Mommy]

This is our first Christmas with the kids. I definitely won't trust them in the same room with our Christmas tree. Rusty is more of a devil. He starts the mischief and she is more than happy to join in!! God knows what would happen to our beautiful tree. We've decided to put the tree in our formal living room this year. It's in the front of the house so it will look nice but we never sit in there so I guess the neighbors will enjoy it more than we will :lol:

 

[murraysmom]

Years ago I had a sweet black lab named Buddy- he was always a perfect gentleman when visiting our friends.....until one Christmas.

We paid a visit to some friends we visited often with Buddy. He had always been perfectly behaved at their house.But this time,they had a huge tree in the middle of their living room. Buddy walked in, took one look, and- you guessed it- lifted his leg and watered their tree. It was horrible...

I think the x-pen idea, or gating off the entire room, are good ideas and will save wear and tear on everyone.

 

[Valerie and George]

George never bothers the tree and this will be his fourth Christmas with us. He always knew which toys were his and which were mine -- I have a lot of "Christmas only" stuffies I like to set around this time of year -- except for some reason he laid claim to Hermy (from "Rudolph") and kept taking poor Hermy for jaunts around the house. He didn't chew it up, but he slobbered on it. I don't tempt him with the presents; those reside on a table out of his reach rather than under the tree.

THIS year, however, we have Gigi, who is still a bit uncivilized and I don't know WHAT she's going to do when she sees a tree in her living room. I'm desperately hoping George will explain to her. He's taught her several other things, like going to the door to indicate a need to potty, so maybe he'll cope with this for us, too. Our house is too small and the doorways too wide to shut them out of the living room. As long as she doesn't decide to chew on the light strings or eat the ornaments, we ought to be okay. As usual, I'll put the presents up high out of reach to remove temptation, and this year the Christmas toys will have to live up high, too. Gigi simply ADORES destroying stuffed toys, which is why all of mine had to be put away. We have an artificial tree (we also have a wood stove, which is WHY we have an artificial tree) and if worse came to worst, I could put it up on a table instead of on the floor.

The best plan, in my opinion, is to figure they're 2-year-olds who don't speak English, and to baby proof everything. :lol:

 

[shallhb]

Bitter Apple? Hah! If my digital camera hadn't malfunctioned, I'd post a picture of her carrying the bottle around the house in her mouth. Keeping the hound away from the tree is a much better option.

 

[BassetHounds&QuarterHorses]

I guess what I am asking about is pet repelant kind of deal. Our house has a "open" layout, so its hard to block them out of the room with the tree. But we could invest in some sort of panels to put around the tree. It would just be nice if the repelant stuff actually worked...

It was all smooth sailing until Flash saw us opening presents that day, lol!