Turkey, Triage, and Trying to Stay Sane

Thanksgiving is supposed to be cozy, quiet, and full of gratitude… but if you’re a veterinary parent, you know it can be a lot more than that! The holiday season hits like a tidal wave of school events, grocery store runs, chaotic travel plans, and the annual debate over which relative makes the driest turkey. And layered on top of all that? Your own pets seem determined to eat something festive but medically concerning, and your clinic gets flooded with pancreatitis, garbage gut, and foreign body emergencies the minute Thanksgiving arrives.

This time of year, “vet brain,” “mom brain,” and “clinic brain” all merge into one overstimulated bundle of exhaustion wrapped in a lab coat. So here’s how vet moms (and dads!) can survive Thanksgiving with their sanity intact, their families fed, and their pets not in the ICU.

The vet parent juggle: Home, clinic, and the dog who ate the turkey

Every vet parent knows the script: you’re juggling school holiday parties, forgotten casseroles, grocery lists, and relatives arriving early… while also triaging texts from friends who want to know if their dog can eat cranberry sauce. And at some point, one of your kids will absolutely drop a plate of food on the floor, and your own dog will inhale something you just warned five clients not to feed theirs.

This isn’t you falling short. It’s physics. Holidays create gravitational pull toward chaos.

So give yourself permission to not do everything perfectly this week. Grab takeout. Say no to that extra school event. And if your turkey comes out dry, pour some extra gravy on it and move on.

Protecting your own pets during the holiday circus

You know better than anyone what Thanksgiving does to dogs’ GI tracts. But your kids and guests do not. So instead of fully relying on your “don’t feed the dog” speech, try setting up these guardrails:

• Feed pets early and give them something long-lasting (and safe) to chew so they’re not hovering near the table.
• Don’t let visiting relatives give “just a taste.” They don’t know what pancreatitis bills look like.
• Trash goes outside immediately. Not next to the door. Not “for a minute.” Immediately.
• If your dog is a counter-surfer, use baby gates in your kitchen like you’re securing a crime scene.
• Save yourself a trip to the clinic on your day off and have go-to meds on hand if you have a frequent flier at home. Think about things like: Cerenia, bland diets, probiotics, or anti-diarrheal medications.

And most importantly, forgive yourself if your own dog still manages to eat a half-stick of butter. It happens to the best of us!

The clinic side: When every dog in town eats turkey skin

Thanksgiving week is notoriously busy in veterinary medicine. Pancreatitis. Foreign bodies. Dog fights between visiting cousins’ dogs. It’s all real, and it all arrives when staffing is stretched thin and you’re trying to get everyone out early.

Here are a few ways to keep your team from imploding:

• Expect a surge and give your staff a heads-up. People handle chaos better when they’re not blindsided.
• Build in buffer blocks on the schedule for “unexpected” emergencies — you’ll use them.
• Have your pancreatitis protocols, foreign-body scripts, and triage checklists ready to go.
• Encourage everyone to actually eat lunch. Yes, even during the holidays. Especially during the holidays.

How to prep clients in advance (so they don’t prep pancreatitis for you)

Your clients don’t know what’s coming, but you do. A little proactive communication goes a long way.

• Update your voicemail and website with holiday hours early.
• Send out a Thanksgiving safety email or social post explaining the big no-no foods.
• Let clients know your expected turnaround times may be longer due to holiday volume.
• Offer guidance on when to go to the ER vs pet urgent care vs call you the next day.
• Give boarding and daycare clients an extra reminder about food, meds, and emergency contacts.

The vet parent sanity guide: You deserve peace too

This time of year is emotionally loaded, overstimulating, and physically exhausting. Here are a few small things you can do to keep yourself grounded:

• Build yourself one non-negotiable moment per day – a walk, a podcast, a hot coffee before anyone is awake.
• Lower the bar. Not the moral bar – the expectation bar. Your house doesn’t need to sparkle. Your meals don’t need homemade cranberry anything.
• Don’t let guilt dictate everything. Your time off is time off. It’s okay to say no to obligations that drain you.
• If you’re working on the holiday, plan your own family celebration on a different day. Kids don’t care what day the turkey happens - they care about togetherness. And from one mom who has done C-sections in the clinic on Thanksgiving and rushed her own dog to the ER after he ate an entire stick of butter… thank you. Truly. Thank you for giving up time with your family so you can care for everyone else’s four-legged family members. Your sacrifice doesn’t go unnoticed.

For practice owners: Supporting your team through holiday scheduling

If you’re running a practice, Thanksgiving is one of the trickiest scheduling weeks of the year. You’re balancing fairness, patient needs, and the reality that everyone is exhausted.

A few tips:

• Communicate holiday expectations early — way before November.
• Rotate holiday duty year to year so no one gets stuck with the same shifts.
• Ask the team what matters most: some prefer Thanksgiving off; others care more about Christmas Eve.
• Provide clarity around on-call rules, holiday pay, and who covers urgent cases.
  Show appreciation in meaningful ways: food, childcare support, gift cards, flexibility, or simply acknowledging how hard this time of year is.

And most importantly: don’t forget to lead with empathy. Veterinary teams are under enormous pressure during holiday weeks. A little compassion goes a long way.

Final thoughts from one vet parent to another

Thanksgiving as a vet mom or dad is messy, chaotic, and weirdly predictable – but also unpredictable at the same time. Your kids will be wild, your clinic will be busy, your inbox will be full of “can my dog eat this?” photos, and your own pets will make at least one questionable choice.

You’re not doing it wrong – this is the job and the season colliding.

Give yourself grace. Give your team gratitude. Give your clients the information they need to not accidentally poison their pets. And give yourself permission to protect your energy wherever you can.

From one tired-but-trying vet mom to all the parents in vet med: you’re doing great. And we’ll get through this season together, one turkey-laden shift at a time.