Seasons and weather
Holiday guests and your dog: place, doors and the table
Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two days a year the whole family finds out how trained the dog really is. Getting through them well is a November project, and the crate is the piece most families forget.
Last reviewed September 11, 2026 · by the Best Dog University Team
The season
Thanksgiving through New Year's: guests for hours, food everywhere, and a schedule with no routine.
Houston holidays are warm enough that the party spreads onto the patio and into the yard, which means the back door is open all afternoon, the pool is uncovered and the guests' dogs are loose. Inside, the table sits at a Lab's nose height for four hours, the children are on the floor with plates, and the doorbell rings all afternoon. The dog's routine disappears: no morning walk because everyone is cooking, alone in the crate for the church hour, then mobbed by cousins who pull ears.
The food is the medical hazard. Turkey bones splinter, fatty skin and gravy cause pancreatitis, grapes, raisins, onions, macadamia nuts and anything with xylitol are toxic, and the trash can on Thanksgiving night is the most dangerous object in the house.
- Guests for hours, doors open, pool uncovered
- Food at nose height for an afternoon
- Children on the floor with plates
- Bones, fat, grapes, onions and the trash can
What it asks of your dog
A place it holds through dinner, a door it waits at, a leave-it for the table, and an off switch.
Place with duration is the whole game: a dog that can hold a bed in the corner of the dining room for an hour while people eat is a dog that can be at the party. Door manners handle the arrivals, and a wait at the back door handles the patio traffic. Leave-it handles the plate on the coffee table and the child's hand. And the crate handles the rest, because no dog should be at a five-hour party for five hours; two hours on place, then a nap in a covered crate in a quiet room, then another hour, is a good day for a good dog.
Guests' dogs are the wildcard. A dog that has never met the cousin's doodle should not meet it in a crowded kitchen; the yard on leashes first, or not at all.
- Place for an hour through dinner
- A door routine for the arrivals
- Leave-it for plates, hands and the trash
- A covered crate as the off switch
- Guests' dogs introduced on leashes in the yard, or kept apart
How we prepare dogs
A fall stay or a November of practice, and a party run in shifts.
Place, door manners, leave-it and crate calm are in every Gold and Platinum stay, and the fall is our busiest season for exactly this reason: families want the dog home and handed over before Thanksgiving. A dog that is home by mid-November with the go-home session done can be proofed through a couple of ordinary dinners before the real one. Families doing it themselves have a month, and the plan is below.
Place with duration daily from Halloween, with meals eaten while the dog holds it
Doorbell repetitions with a helper, and a wait at the back door before the patio
Leave-it from a plate on the coffee table, then from a child's hand
Crate calm with the crate covered in a quiet room and a chew
A practice dinner with two guests a week before the day
On the day: a structured walk first, then place, crate, place in shifts
Food and the trash behind a closed door, and one adult assigned to the dog
Nearby and related
Halloween opens the season, New Year's closes it, and the January regression is real.
The door work starts at Halloween and the Halloween guide on this site is the warm-up. New Year's Eve brings fireworks, and in Cypress, Katy and the unincorporated county they are as loud as July 4; the fireworks plan is its own page. January brings a dog that has been fed from the table for a month and a family that has stopped running place, and the regression page explains why the first two weeks of the year are the time to tighten the rules. The holiday board and train page covers the stays that end before Thanksgiving and the ones that run through Christmas while families travel.
- Halloween as the warm-up
- New Year's fireworks
- January regression from a month of table scraps
- Holiday stays that end before Thanksgiving
The programs
Programs that get a dog ready for the holidays.
Gold for place, the door and leave-it by mid-November, Platinum for the dog that guards or lunges at guests, lessons at home to run the practice dinner.
Asked and answered
Questions people ask about this.
Should my dog be crated during Thanksgiving dinner?
For part of it, yes. Two hours on place near the table is a good showing for a trained dog; five hours is too long for any dog. A covered crate in a quiet room with a chew for the middle of the afternoon keeps the dog rested and the family relaxed.
How do I keep guests from feeding my dog?
Say it once at the door and then make it impossible: the dog on place across the room, not under the table, and a leave-it that the dog already knows. Guests feed a dog that is at their elbow. A dog on a bed twelve feet away does not get fed.
Can my dog meet the guests' dogs?
Only if both dogs are calm on leashes in the yard first, with a parallel walk before any greeting, and only if there is no food and no crowd. If either dog stiffens, they spend the day apart. A kitchen full of people is not the place to find out.
What holiday foods are dangerous for dogs?
Turkey bones, fatty skin and gravy, grapes and raisins, onions and garlic, macadamia nuts, chocolate, alcohol and anything sweetened with xylitol. The trash can on Thanksgiving night holds most of them. The ASPCA poison control line is the number to keep on the fridge.
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