With a puppy in the house, is the Christmas tree destined to be a chew toy this year?

If you had to choose between having a Christmas tree or having a dog, what would you choose? Of course, duh, the correct answer is dog. Every. Single. Time.

Recently my husband and I got a dog. At just under a year old, she’s still rocking those puppy vibes. One of her many amazing attributes is her ability and overwhelming need to chew everything. We’ve adjusted by clearing our house out and only having furniture made out of extra-large Himalayan yak cheese dog chews so our puppy can gnaw to her heart’s content.

Of course I’m being silly, but imagine a couch that’s constructed from dehydrated smoked meat, with cushions made from indestructible nylon wrapped around a giant squeaker.

It would be the ultimate “dog mom” flex. But there would be many downsides, the most pressing one being the need to keep on buying new “meat” furniture.

Because I’m not that crazy, rawhide furniture will never become my design aesthetic. That said, we did have a big holiday design issue with our dog. We feared our “aggressive chewer” would totally destroy a Christmas tree.

Think about it. You’re bringing a tree inside your home and then placing orbs on it. In canine math any orb equals a ball and balls equal chewing. It’s a nightmare scenario that many pet owners have had to face. I know this because I googled “dogs and Christmas trees” and was taken to a collection of businesses that had to be North Pole adjacent.

I’m envisioning companies started by entrepreneurial elves, who tired from making toys 24/7 for the big man in red and started their own businesses manufacturing something called “Christmas tree defenders.”

A Christmas tree defender can be many things, from a small white plastic picket fence you put around your tree to what I’m going to call a tree prison because you can literally put your tree behind bars.

The thought of having to sentence our Christmas tree to jail to keep it safe from our dog was unappealing. Who wants to go to all the trouble to decorate a tree and then encase it in powder-coated steel with motion sensors? It’s not exactly a visual that’s going to put you in the holiday spirit.

This led me to announce right before Thanksgiving that maybe we shouldn’t get a tree this year.

OMG, from my family’s reaction (all adults, mind you), you would have thought I said that we weren’t doing presents ever again and our gift to each would be our love for family to infinity and beyond.

Based on their, unbeknownst to me, emotional connection to Christmas trees, I threw caution to the wind and got a tree that I decided to not imprison.

The entire time I was decorating the tree our dog seemed confused. She never once approached the tree or was enticed by the ornaments.

Then when I did the piece de resistance and turned on the Christmas tree lights she ran away and hid in the laundry room. The puppy was scared of the tree. Not even a meatball could coax her out.

For hours she stayed in the laundry room until finally she cautiously walked in the living room, took one look at the tree, gave it the evil eye, and immediately went outside.

I don’t know if she’s angry that there’s a tree in her house or just really mad that it’s full of orbs and none of them is made from yak cheese or dehydrated meat.

So far, all is calm, all is bright, but I fear our dog might be biding her time and planning an epic tree take-down soon. I have a feeling I might regret not putting our tree behind bars.

Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs @snarkynsuburbs, on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.