Everyone loves celebrating Halloween, playing dress up and eating sweets, but we forget the effect this can have on your pets, and really can stress them out. So depending on your animal, this Halloween be more considerate with stressing them out and putting them in potential danger. But one thing that your furry friends can join in on is dressing up, dressing your animal up is great fun and overall safe for the animal, but do be mindful if they are seeming uncomfortable.
Knocking on Doors
When kids come knocking at the door, most dogs will start barking, and having that constantly throughout the night can really stress them out, so putting them outside in the garden, or in a space where they wont be able to hear the door will really be beneficial to them, as well as the kids that come knocking, being alarmed when they hear the barking.
As you will be opening the door very often throughout Halloween night it is best to keep your pet shut in a room where they wont be able to greet the ‘Trick or Treaters’ for many reasons. This saves the probability of your pet scaring the young children, potentially escaping/ running away or being alarmed/ frightened by the costumes and can cause unpredictable, irrational behaviour from your animal.
Feeding them
Obviously it is a well known fact your animal wont be able to eat any of the sweets/chocolate that you receive/give on Halloween, so it it best to keep your treats away and in a place that is not reachable for your animal to get to, as this can cause serious illness. As well as this, make sure to clean up the rappers, even if its late and your tired, with pets around it is dangerous and a nice smelling choking hazard for them.
But on the bright side, any leftover pumpkin is actually edible for dogs and cats and, in fact, pumpkin is very healthy for your furry friends and if prepared correctly, can be implemented in their diet! But while they have candles in and are lit, keep your animals far away from them, and make sure to dispose of them properly to save your animal chewing on mouldy pumpkins.
Taking your dog ‘Trick or Treating’
If you’re thinking of saving your dog walk for when you’re walking your kids door-to-door, then you might want to rethink it, as this can really stress your dog out as seeing the costumes would not be normal for them, especially as kids, who are dressed up, might approach your dog. This can also work vice versa, since there are an unusual amount of children around, your dog is likely to scare one of them, it is really recommended to keep them inside as there is not guessing what their reaction will be to seeing unfamiliar costumes as it could be dangerous.
Decorations
Decorating is great fun for Halloween and really gets you in the spirit, but for your pets it can be alarming if you have an electronic skeleton for example, that speaks when detecting movement, your pet wont be able to tell it’s not an animal and can be alarmed. As well as any indoor decoration, even fake cobwebs can be a choking hazard for your pets, so you need to make sure that they cant get hold of anything that could potentially harm them.
