Halloween sends more pets to veterinary clinics than almost any other single evening. Four things cause nearly all of it: chocolate and sweets within reach, a front door opening a hundred times, costumes, and decorations that get chewed. Preparing in late September rather than on the night itself makes an enormous difference to how it goes.

Why Dunbar-Southlands is a busier night than most

This is a genuinely popular trick-or-treating neighbourhood. Detached houses, walkable blocks, families, and streets people deliberately drive to in order to walk them. For most of the year that is the appeal of living here. On the thirty first of October it means an evening of near-constant doorbell, strangers in unusual outfits, and an open front door in a house where the dog is already unsettled.

Add fireworks, which in Vancouver arrive scattered across the days around Halloween rather than only on the night, and you have a combination that a lot of pets cope with badly.

The reason to think about it now, in September, is that the preparation that actually works takes a few weeks. A safe room a dog already likes, a microchip record you have checked, and a costume the cat has met before are all things you cannot arrange on the afternoon of the day.

Chocolate and sweets, which is the big one

Halloween puts more chocolate at floor level in a house than any other time of year, usually in a bowl by the door and a bag in a child’s room.

• Chocolate. Risk depends on the type and the amount relative to your dog’s weight. Dark chocolate and cocoa powder carry far more of the problem compound than milk chocolate. Signs include restlessness, a racing heart, vomiting, tremors and seizures.
• Xylitol, sometimes labelled birch sugar. This is in sugar-free sweets, gum and some baked goods, and it is more dangerous than chocolate. It causes a rapid, severe drop in blood sugar and can cause liver failure. Very small amounts matter.
• Raisins, in the small boxes handed out as a healthier option, and in baking. These can cause kidney failure and there is no reliably safe quantity.
• Wrappers, lollipop sticks and foil. These cause obstructions, and they are eaten alongside the sweet rather than instead of it.
• Macadamia nuts in some chocolates, which cause weakness and tremors.

If your dog gets into the sweet bowl, phone straight away and count the wrappers rather than guessing. Keep the packaging, because the ingredient list and the cocoa percentage change our assessment. A dog that has eaten a wrapped sweet may also have a foreign body problem alongside the toxicity, which our guide to choking and foreign body hazards covers in more detail.

Tell the children the actual reason

The bowl by the door is not usually the problem. The problem is a bag of sweets taken up to a bedroom and left on the floor. Children respond much better to being told that chocolate and sugar-free sweets can make the dog seriously ill than to a rule about tidiness. Give them somewhere high to put the bag, and make it their job.

The door is the other half of the problem

An open front door, repeatedly, in the dark, with an excited or frightened animal in the hallway is how pets are lost on Halloween. Cats slip out and do not come back for days. Dogs push past and are gone into a neighbourhood full of strangers.

• Set up a safe room away from the front door, ideally upstairs or at the back, with the door closed and something familiar to lie on. Do this in September so it becomes a normal, pleasant place well before the night.
• Put cats in before dusk, and keep them in for the evening. Black cats especially; there is no need to be dramatic about why, but indoors is simply safer on a night with this much activity.
• Check the microchip details now. An out-of-date phone number makes the chip useless, and this is the one job on the list that costs nothing and takes five minutes.
• Collar and tag with a current number, quick-release for cats.
• Use a baby gate or a closed inner door as a second barrier between the pet and the front door.
• Take a current photo and keep it on your phone.
• Consider handing sweets out from the porch or driveway with the door shut behind you.

Costumes, decorations and the rest

Costumes are fine for some pets and genuinely stressful for others. The test is simple: put it on, and if your pet freezes, tries to remove it, will not walk normally or looks flattened, take it off. A bandana or a themed collar achieves the photograph without the distress.

If you do use one, check that it does not restrict breathing, movement, vision or the ability to open the mouth, that there is nothing dangling to chew off and swallow, and never leave a costumed pet unsupervised. Introduce it a couple of weeks beforehand rather than on the night.

Around the house:

• Glow sticks and glow jewellery. Very commonly chewed by cats. The contents taste foul and cause drooling and foaming, which is alarming but usually settles. Phone us if it happens.
• Candles and lit pumpkins. Burns and knocked-over flames. Use battery lights instead.
• Fake cobwebs and streamers. These get eaten and can cause obstruction.
• Electrical cords for lights and animated decorations, which are a chewing risk.
• Small props and plastic parts that come off decorations at pet height.

Noise, fear and the days around it

Fireworks and doorbells are the two triggers, and the doorbell is underrated. A dog that reacts to one visitor is going to react a hundred times in three hours, and by the end of it is genuinely worn out rather than merely annoyed.

Practical steps: disconnect or muffle the doorbell and sit outside to hand out sweets, put background sound on in the safe room, close curtains, and feed and walk your dog well before dark. Walk earlier in the day rather than at dusk, when the streets fill up.

If your pet has a serious noise fear, please come and talk to us in the next few weeks rather than at the end of October. Our medical services team can look at the whole picture, and there is considerably more that can be done with a month of preparation than on the night itself.

When to phone us

Contact our urgent care team straight away for any of these:

• Any amount of chocolate, sugar-free sweets, gum or raisins eaten
• Swallowed wrappers, foil, sticks or decoration parts
• Restlessness, a racing heart, tremors or seizures
• Repeated vomiting, or retching without producing anything
• Weakness, wobbliness or collapse
• Any pet that has escaped and returned different
• Distress that is not settling once the house is quiet again

Frequently asked questions

My dog ate one small chocolate. Is that an emergency?

Phone us and have the wrapper to hand. Whether it matters depends on the type of chocolate and your dog’s weight, and that is worth calculating properly rather than guessing. Many of these calls end with monitoring at home, which is a much better position than wondering all evening.

Should I keep my cat in for the whole week?

Keeping cats in on the night itself is the important part. Given that fireworks in Vancouver are scattered across several days around Halloween, keeping cats in from dusk through that period is sensible. If that is a change for your household, start shifting the evening mealtime earlier now so it is established before you need it.

My dog loves people. Can he greet the trick-or-treaters?

A confident, sociable dog often copes fine, but consider it from the visitor’s side too. Small children in the dark, already excited, meeting a large excited dog at an open door is how bites happen even with lovely dogs. Most owners find it easier to keep the dog behind a gate and hand sweets out from the porch.

My cat chewed a glow stick. What now?

Phone us, but do not panic. The contents taste extremely bitter, so cats usually drool, foam and dash about. Offer a little food or water to help clear the taste, wipe any liquid off the coat before your cat grooms it, and watch for anything beyond the initial reaction. Call if there is eye contact with it or if the reaction does not settle within a few minutes.

Are costumes actually cruel?

Not inherently, and plenty of pets are entirely unbothered. It depends on the individual animal and on the costume. If your pet freezes, hides, tries to get it off or stops walking normally, that is a clear no. There is no reason to push it when a bandana does the same job.

What is the single most useful thing I can do now?

Check your pet’s microchip registration details are current. It takes five minutes, it costs nothing, and it is the difference between a lost pet coming home the same night and not coming home at all. Everything else on this list matters, but that one is free.

Speak to the team at Dunbar Animal Hospital

If your pet struggles with noise or visitors, come and talk to us now rather than at the end of October. Call us on (604) 434-0018.

Published by the team at Dunbar Animal Hospital.

This article is for general educational purposes only and is not a substitute for an in-person veterinary examination or advice about your individual pet. If you have an urgent concern about your pet, contact Dunbar Animal Hospital or your nearest emergency veterinary hospital right away.

Dunbar Animal Hospital
3518 W 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC V6N 3E6
Phone: (604) 434-0018
Hours: Monday to Saturday 8:30 AM to 8:00 PM; Sunday 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM