Turning pet TikTok trend: It might look cute but a vet warns this viral Tiktok trend is ‘dangerous’ for your pet

A vet has urged pet owners to stop participating in a new TikTok trend that has recently gone viral with some clips racking up millions of views.

The trend involves people filming their pets, which are mainly dogs and cats, while holding them under the shoulders and turning them around and around, and then posting the videos on social media.

Dr Katrina Warren warns that though the content, which is also now appearing on Instagram, looks cute, it is putting animals at serious risk of injury or worse.

Watch the video above.

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One of the dangers comes from the way people are holding their pets when they make these clips.

“When you lift up an animal by their front legs, they’re then carrying all of the weight of their body on those front legs so it’s very easy to damage their shoulders,” Dr Katrina tells 9honey Pets.

“They’re used to being on four legs. They’re not like people, they have different shoulders to us so it’s easy to damage their ligaments and their muscles and injure them.”

Some dog breeds may be more at risk of injury from this, including large dog breeds, which some TikTokers are struggling to pick up and end up dropping on their hind legs, and dachshunds, which have a long spine and are already prone to back problems.

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In addition to injury, spinning your pet around repeatedly by their front legs is causing them a lot of anguish.

“It’s very stressful for a lot of the pets, so some of the pets might tolerate it really well but it doesn’t mean they’re enjoying it,” Dr Katrina says.

“A lot of pets aren’t tolerating it very well, and they’re definitely not enjoying it. You can see a lot of them are distressed; they’re trying to get down [and] they can’t get down because the speed is so great with some of these.”

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Pets can also get very dizzy while being spun like this and become disoriented.

“It’s a very unnatural movement for them, and it can be very scary for a pet to suddenly not have their balance, and I’ve seen a couple of cats, they’ve been sound asleep and the person has picked them up and just started spinning them around.”

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And there’s no telling how many times a pet would have to be put through this to get the perfect shot.

“What worries me also is I know how many takes people take to do videos, because I make videos myself. So they’re probably doing this a number of times for some of them just to get what looks like a very cute video,” Dr Katrina explains.

Worst of all, doing this with your pet can ruin the relationship you’ve built with them.

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“It can damage the trust of your pet,” she says.

“The other thing is, even if pets are tolerating it, it’s sending a really bad message to children and pet owners that this kind of thing is OK.”

Randomly picking pets up like this and dangling them is a complete no-go but if you do need to pick them up, for example if you’re putting them in the car, it must be done safely.

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Dr Katrina always lets her dog Chilli and cat Leo know if she’s going to pick them up and then she holds them properly.

“My message to everybody is, always support your pet body fully. You want them at least one hand under their chest and one around their hind quarters, depending on the size. You want them properly supported.”

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