Who doesn’t love a summer BBQ? With the warmer weather and longer daylight hours we are all keen to get our snags cooking – and your pets probably are too!

How do you best keep your pet safe around the BBQ? Follow these four safety tips so your pets can enjoy the BBQ as much as you do.

1. Keep pets away from the BBQ

The smells coming from the BBQ are irresistible to our pets. Keep your pet away from the hot BBQ at all times to prevent burns. Keep the lid closed when you are not around, especially after cooking, to prevent your cat jumping up on the hot plate to hunt out any leftovers or meat juices.

2. Use a drip tray

Some pets will eat anything that meat juices may have dripped on to – including sticks and rocks! These can be ingested and cause intestinal injury and obstruction.

3. Clean up

After your BBQ throw away all drip trays, foil, left overs, bones and meat skewers. Dogs in particular love to scavenge and ingest things they shouldn’t! We don’t want to have to perform intestinal surgery to remove them.

4. Don’t feed leftovers

Ask your guests not to feed your pet any leftovers or tidbits from the table as this can lead to gastric upsets and pancreatitis. Have a bag of pet safe treats on hand instead – we have great options in stock so ask us for a recommendation.