Keeping Pets Safe on Halloween: Chocolate, Doorbells and Costumes

Halloween is a strange night for a pet. The doorbell goes every few minutes, strangers in masks appear at the threshold, and the house fills with food that is genuinely dangerous to them. Most of the risk is avoidable with a bit of planning, and almost none of it is about the costume.

The three real dangers

1. Chocolate

Chocolate contains theobromine, which dogs metabolise far more slowly than we do. The darker the chocolate the worse it is: cooking and dark chocolate carry several times the theobromine of milk chocolate, and a small dog needs surprisingly little.

Signs usually appear within 6 to 12 hours — vomiting, diarrhoea, restlessness, a racing heart, tremors. Do not wait to see whether it passes. Ring your vet with your dog's weight, the type of chocolate and roughly how much, and they will tell you whether to come in.

2. Xylitol, which is worse than chocolate

Xylitol (sometimes labelled birch sugar or E967) appears in sugar-free sweets, chewing gum and some peanut butters. In dogs it triggers a rapid insulin release and can cause a life-threatening drop in blood sugar within 30 minutes, and liver damage after that.

It is more dangerous per gram than chocolate and far less well known. If your dog has eaten sugar-free anything, treat it as an emergency and ring a vet immediately.

3. Wrappers and the things around the sweets

Foil, cellophane and lollipop sticks cause obstructions, and an obstruction is surgery. Glow sticks are a common Halloween call — the liquid tastes vile and causes drooling and foaming rather than serious poisoning, but it panics owners.

Animal PoisonLine (01202 509000) is a 24-hour service run by the Veterinary Poisons Information Service. It is a paid call, but it will tell you whether what your pet ate actually warrants a vet visit.

The doorbell is the bigger problem

For most dogs, the genuinely stressful part of Halloween is not the costume — it is a doorbell that rings thirty times in two hours, each time with strangers behind it, several of them in masks.

If your dog already reacts to the door, do not try to train through it on the night. Set them up in a room at the back of the house with the television or radio on, something to chew, and the curtains shut. Feed them before the callers start rather than during.

A dog that is already nervous about noise will find this harder still. Our guides on noise anxiety in dogs and dogs and fireworks cover the same ground in more depth, and fireworks season overlaps with Halloween in most of the UK.

Cats are simpler: keep them in from late afternoon and shut the cat flap. Black cats in particular are worth keeping in over Halloween.

The door itself is an escape route

This gets forgotten. A door opening every few minutes, often with the hall light on and a dog milling about, is how pets get out. More animals go missing around Halloween and Bonfire Night than at almost any other point in the year.

Before the evening starts, check your pet's collar and ID tag, and check the microchip details are current — a chip is useless if it still lists a phone number you had three houses ago. You can update yours through whichever database holds it.

If you can, use a back door for handing out sweets, or put a baby gate across the hall.

Costumes: honestly, most pets would rather not

A costume should never restrict breathing, sight, hearing or movement, must have nothing small enough to chew off and swallow, and must never be left on an unsupervised pet — including overnight or during rough play.

Watch for the signs that your pet has had enough: ears flattened back, a low or tucked tail, lip-licking, freezing in place, or trying to reverse out of the garment. A dog that stops moving in a costume is not being stubborn; they are telling you clearly.

Try it on indoors for a few minutes several days beforehand, with a treat, and take it off before they ask you to. A pet that has met the costume once is far easier to photograph than one meeting it on the doorstep with the bell going.

If yours is in the large group of animals that will not wear clothing at all, a themed bandana or a seasonal collar gets you the same photograph with none of the argument. For cats, a hat or a set of ears is tolerated far more often than a cape.

If you are dressing them up

• Measure the chest, not the weight — chest circumference behind the front legs is what decides the size
• Check the fit under the front legs for rubbing, especially on rider-style costumes with straps
• Dark costumes on a dark evening are a visibility problem on a walk; several skeleton costumes are luminous, which is genuinely useful rather than a gimmick
• Never clip a lead to a costume — always to a proper collar or harness underneath

A sensible plan for the night

1. Walk the dog before dusk, while the streets are still quiet 2. Feed before the callers start 3. Settle nervous pets in a back room with noise cover, curtains shut 4. Cats in from late afternoon, cat flap locked 5. Sweets on a high shelf, not in a bowl by the door 6. Check collar, tag and microchip details 7. Costume on for photographs, off again straight after

When to ring a vet rather than wait

Ring immediately, without waiting for symptoms, if your pet has eaten chocolate, anything sugar-free, raisins or grapes, or if you think they have swallowed a wrapper or a lollipop stick. For everything else, ring if you see repeated vomiting, tremors, collapse, difficulty breathing, or a level of distress that is not settling.

Out of hours, use your practice's emergency number — it will be on their answerphone — or find your nearest emergency vet.