Christmas Tree - How do I make it a 'No Pee Zone'?

[ramanth]

Hey all!!

Long time no see! Been a busy couple of months. Dogs are steadily adjusting to life in the new place.

I've decided to get a real tree for my first Christmas in the new house. My question is for those of you that put up real trees, how do you keep the dogs from peeing on it?

Hope you all have been well!

[Karen]

Never had a problem with peeing, but we used to put the tree inside a playpen to protect it from Gracie's tail! As she was mostly Great Dane, and didn't really seem to know where her tail was, she could clear most of the ornaments from the tree with one happy moment!

[CountryWolf07]

Never had a problem with my dogs. We've always had a real tree until two years ago. Last night, Hank was laying under the tree, staring at the lights & one of the ornaments. Kept sniffing it and he was pretty curious about it. It was cute to watch. He'd look at it then look at me with, "What's that thing?", then he will go back to chewing on his bone.

[Freedom]

I've never had a problem with this, either.

Growing up, we had 3 dogs over time. We had -- and I have now in my home -- hardwood floors. So first mom put down a flat sheet, folded double. On top of that went the tree skirt. Once the tree was in the stand and the stand on th skirt, we put the water in it. Then mom covered the entire stand with tin foil; you want some sort of "lid" to reduce evaporation, so you don't have to add water as often.

If you use a preservative in the water, all the more reason to cover the stand -- you don't want the dogs lapping the water either.

On top of all THAT, Mom put a decorative piece of material.

I "inherited" the sheet, skirt, and decorative top cover, so I just used that when I had a live tree here.

As Karen mentioned, tails are an issue! We put plastic ornaments at the bottom, and the glass ones higher up. This is good for when friends arrive with small kids, too. Oh, remember, tails can catch on a strip of garland at the bottom of the tree and clear a LOT, maybe even pull the whole tree over, lol.

Hope this helps.

[ramanth]

I've had fake trees up in the past, so as far as ornaments went, we'd either put plastic ones on the bottom, or none at all (seeing as the cats liked to knock them off ).

Thanks for the tips on keeping water in the stand.

[k9krazee]

We've always had a real tree and have never had a problem with the dogs. Except for stealing candy canes