Holiday Awareness and Your Pets

(Family Features) The holiday season presents opportunities for celebrating with loved ones, and for many families, that includes their dogs and cats. However, holiday foods and decorations can pose health risks for pets and the hustle and bustle may be overwhelming.

To help keep your pet safe amid the jolly chaos, consider these potential hazards from the experts at VCA Animal Hospitals, which has more than 1,000 locations across North America that cared for more than 4.5 million pets last year.

Decorations
Decorations are part of almost every holiday celebration but making some pet-proofed choices can make your home safe for four-legged guests as well. If you put up a tree (live or artificial), ensure it’s set up securely and use shatter-proof ornaments, ideally hung above tail height and out of paws’ reach. If you have kittens less than 1 year old in your home, they sometimes like to climb up the tree trunk to the top, so extra care may be needed. Hang smaller ornaments toward the top of the tree to reduce potential choking hazards and avoid salt dough ornaments, which may look like a snack to pets but can cause electrolyte problems, and tinsel as it can become lodged in a pet’s gut and cause issues.

Additionally, consider battery-operated candles instead of real ones, which can be easily knocked over by curious pets and burn them or lead to more serious fire risks. Dangling cords from seasonal decor can also appeal to pets, and if chewed while plugged in could result in electrical shock or burn to the tongue, so secure them out of sight and unplug when not in use.

Food
With the holidays comes a delicious variety of baked goods, chocolate confections and other rich foods. However, some of those seasonal goodies can present problems for pets. For example, chocolate and cocoa contain theobromine, a chemical similar to caffeine that’s highly toxic to both dogs and cats. Ingestion in small amounts can cause vomiting and diarrhea, but large amounts can cause seizures and heart arrhythmias.

Other traditional holiday mainstays such as fruitcakes, breads and cookies that contain grapes, raisins or currants can cause kidney failure in dogs. Sugarless gums and candies may contain xylitol, a natural sweetener, which can cause serious conditions like dangerously low blood sugar and liver failure in dogs. Leftover fatty meat scraps can produce severe inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis), leading to abdominal pain, vomiting and bloody diarrhea.

Plants
Although live trees are non-toxic, their needles do not digest well, and their water may contain bacteria, mold or fertilizer that should not be ingested. Additionally, poinsettias, which often have a bad reputation among pet owners, can cause upset stomachs if the leaves are ingested though it’s typically milder than the symptoms associated with holly, mistletoe and amaryllis. Daffodils, lilies and narcissi are also toxic to pets.

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Guests
An increase in visitors, ringing of the doorbell and extra excitement of the holiday season can be stressful for pets. Try to keep your four-legged friend’s feeding and exercise schedule as regular as possible, and make time for additional stress-relieving playtime and snuggles. To help avoid overstimulation, it may be best to keep your pets in their own crates or a quiet room with food, water and comfortable bedding while you have company. If you need additional assistance, consult with your veterinarian.

Travel
Holiday travel with your four-legged family members requires some extra packing and precautions. If traveling by car, make sure your pet is safely restrained using a secure harness or carrier and placed away from any airbags. Make sure pets are microchipped and their registration is up to date in case you become separated. Never leave pets alone in a vehicle or transport them in the bed of a truck. Also be sure you have updated health certificates from your veterinarian, if required by any states you will visit or pass through, and pack copies of medical records, first aid supplies, food and medications, leashes, collars and favorite toys.

For more tips to make the holidays safe for pets, visit vcahospitals.com.

Photos courtesy of Getty Images

SOURCE:
VCA Animal Hospitals

(Family Features) Being financially secure in retirement starts while you’re still working. Because you likely don’t want to remain in the workforce forever, creating a plan can help ensure you’re confident in living comfortably in retirement when the time comes.

Retirement plans and financial aspirations are deeply personal and often tied to family life, ambitions and values, meaning it’s entirely up to you when to start planning and saving for your post-work years. However, the worrying reality is that many households across the U.S. don’t feel in control of their finances. According to a study from World Financial Group, 11% of households have “forfeited contributions to their retirement accounts,” a decision that will have an impact later in life.

To ensure you’re prepared, consider these steps to plan for retirement.

Understand When You Can Retire and How Much Money You Will Need

Because nearly everyone has different goals for retirement, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to when and how much money you’ll need to stop working. Assess your unique situation – including all your forms of income, assets and savings – and calculate what you’ll need to maintain your standard of living and cover expenses, including any discretionary spending, in retirement.

Choose an Appropriate Retirement Plan for Your Needs

In addition to figuring out how much you should save, having the right savings vehicle is an important consideration. A good place to start is an employer-sponsored retirement plan with fund-matching, such as a 401(k). If a workplace retirement plan is not available, consider setting aside money for retirement through an IRA that provides access to a range of investments, including stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Some insurance products may also provide benefits during retirement, such as life insurance coverage, supplemental income and tax advantages.

Take Stock of Your Current Assets
Your current assets include more than just what’s in your bank account. Beyond your paycheck, factor in real estate, investment accounts and any insurance policies you may have. If you need help understanding your finances, take a financial literacy quiz to test your knowledge and then consider meeting with a financial services expert.

Create a Retirement Budget and Look at Ways to Reduce Expenses
Your retirement budget should look similar to yours while still part of the workforce. Start by accounting for how much money is coming in and how much is going out toward fixed expenses like utilities, cellphone bills, insurance premiums, rent or mortgage and vehicle payments then track other expenses like groceries, gasoline and other spending toward non-essentials like entertainment and clothing. From there, look for ways to cut expenses to stretch your funds further, such as canceling a streaming service, dining out less or skipping a new movie release.

Account for Unexpected Expenses
Before retirement, consider how you’d handle unexpected expenses such as a medical emergency, home or vehicle repair or moving into an assisted living facility. Suppose you don’t have the appropriate health and homeowner’s insurance coverage. In that case, you may be covering those costs out-of-pocket, which could limit or hinder your financial flexibility on a fixed income.

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Test your literacy and find additional resources to plan for retirement at WorldFinancialGroup.com.

Photo courtesy of iStock

SOURCE:
World Financial Group

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(Family Features) Starting on a path toward healthy habits is often easier than maintaining them long term. This year, you can avoid a major pitfall of healthy resolutions and build healthy habits that stick by working small, positive steps into your daily life.

In fact, healthy habits are the first suggested treatment strategy for people whose blood pressure and cholesterol levels are creeping higher than normal, according to an American Heart Association scientific statement.

“The current guidelines for managing high blood pressure and cholesterol recognize that otherwise healthy individuals with mildly or moderately elevated levels of these cardiovascular risk factors should actively attempt to reduce these risks, and increasing physical activity is a great place to start,” said Bethany Barone Gibbs, Ph.D., chair of the statement writing group and chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at West Virginia University School of Public Health.

These six ideas from the American Heart Association’s Healthy for Good Habit Coach can help.

Bust Common Habit-Building Myths

You may be surprised to learn the truth about creating and sticking to healthy habits. One myth is getting healthy means doing things you don’t like. Research shows positive emotions make habits stick, so set your intentions on something you enjoy. Another misconception is big results require big changes, which may lead to overly ambitious habits. However, the simpler the routine is, the more likely it is to become habit.

Work with Your “Brain Loops”

Your brain creates “loops” for habits made up of three things: a cue, a routine and a reward. Each time the loop is repeated, it becomes more routine and may become automatic. Knowing this, you can design cues for developing new, healthy habits, such as setting walking shoes by the bed to start a walking habit. The routine is putting on the shoes and walking around the block, and the reward is the pleasant sensations and brighter mood from a morning stroll.

Create Cues That Work for You

Most successful health habits begin with a cue. The cue can be external in your environment or internal in terms of your mindset. The more consistent the cue, the more likely it is to trigger the habit. Hacking your brain’s reminder system can help you remember your cue. Some examples of visual cues are placing a sticky note where you’ll see it often, keeping a water bottle on your desk or refrigerating fresh veggies at eye level.

Build a Routine That Supports Your Goals

Positive and consistent habits are important to achieve your personal goals. Small habits done consistently can add up to big results. To create a new healthy habit, think through the steps that could lead to your desired outcome. Ask yourself whether you want to do it, if it’s easy and if it’s high impact. It’s important to choose habits that make a difference and move you closer to your goals.

For example, if one of your goals is improving your heart health, a meaningful habit might be to move more. Increasing physical activity can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol along with many other health benefits, Gibbs said.

“Every little bit of activity is better than none,” she said. “Even small initial increases of 5-10 minutes a day can yield health benefits.”

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Use Rewards to Make Habits Stick

Start by choosing a habit you enjoy that’s rewarding by itself. If you’re more of a dancer than runner, increase your physical activity with an upbeat dance class. You might also look for a more enjoyable version of a new habit, such as getting more fruits and veggies by sipping on a delicious smoothie.

Understand Resets are Part of the Process

New habits are experiments. If they don’t stick, you haven’t failed. Instead, you’ve learned what doesn’t work, which is useful. Get curious and ask yourself which part of the habit didn’t work for you. Maybe the cue was ineffective. Maybe the steps of the routine were too ambitious and you need to split them into smaller, easier steps. If you realize you don’t enjoy the habit, stop doing it and try something else.

Find more inspiration and ideas to jumpstart healthy habits this year at heart.org/habits.

Photos courtesy of Getty Images

SOURCE:
American Heart Association

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