Halloween is a great night if you're a person. If you're a dog or a cat, it's the night the doorbell loses its mind, strangers in weird outfits keep showing up at the door, and there's a bowl of poison sitting on the coffee table. Here's how we get through it.
The door is the whole problem: that door is going to open forty times in one evening. Dogs bolt. Cats are worse — a cat can slip out through a six-inch gap while you're handing a fun-size Snickers to a tiny vampire. So ours spend the busy hours in a back room with water, a bed, and something to chew on. Nobody has ever once felt guilty about this after the first doorbell ring.
The candy: chocolate is genuinely dangerous for dogs, and the sugar-free stuff can be worse — xylitol (it's in a lot of sugar-free gum and candy) can kill a dog fast. The wrappers aren't great either. The candy bowl lives up high at our house, not on the coffee table, and the kids' haul bags go straight into a cabinet with a door that shuts. Not on the floor. Never on the floor.
Costumes: only if the animal actually tolerates it, and most don't. Nothing tight around the neck, nothing with little chewable pieces hanging off it, and if the dog is doing the frozen statue thing, the costume comes off. A picture isn't worth a scared dog. The cat has made her position on costumes clear for years and we respect it.
Fire and glow sticks: a jack-o-lantern with a real candle in it plus a cat tail is just a countdown. We use the little battery tea lights now. Glow sticks get chewed and the stuff inside tastes awful and makes them drool like crazy — scary looking, usually not serious, but easy to avoid.
If they do get out: Halloween is the one night you really want the ID tag on and the chip info current. More doors open, more chances. Takes two minutes to check the tag is still readable.
The honest part: our dog believes trick-or-treaters are a delivery service of new friends who come to the door specifically for her. The cat believes the doorbell is a personal attack. Neither of them is having fun out there in the middle of it, and that's fine. Back room, chew toy, door shut. They forgive us by breakfast.
