Drinking The Tree's Water!

[Daisy's Mom]

My 2 year old Basset Daisy has been drinking water out of the stand of our Christmas tree. I never thought this was bad until I read somewhere it's not safe. What could happen from this? And if I should stop her, how can I? She has her own water dish out all the time so it's not that... any idead?

[RachelJ]

I would just loosely drap some kind of tree skirt (small rug or old quilt) around the stand, so she can't access the water in the stand.

[lhg0962]

I put a plain flat, white sheet around the base of my tree and covered the tree stand wtih it to keep my cat out of it. She loves to find water in the most unusual places. Hope you have some luck.

[ktreva52]

My, that Daisy dog is just a busy little punkin', isn't she? I don't think that unless you're putting some sort of preservative in the tree's water it would hurt her, but I would try covering it as noted above and teach her to "leave it" and encourage her to play with something or take her to her own bowl and teach her to drink on command if necessary. I wonder if adding Bitter Apple would help? I doubt it would hurt the tree, but it might make the water so yucky Daisy decides she doesn't care for it any more.

[Doxiedoxie]

Ugh! My dachshund Blue does this as well ( she is also a bathtub water licker- luckily she cannot reach the toilet bowl!). I use aluminum foil to put over the top of the stand so she cant get to the water, you can mold it to the shape you want, and get a nice fit.