HALLOWEEN HELP FOR HAPPY PETS
IIt’s almost the scariest night of the year for you and your pet!  The CCADT recommends taking preventative steps and precautions this Halloween to keep your pet safe all the way through the celebrations.

• Keep your pets safely indoors, away from trick-or-treaters and other Halloween activities.

• Make sure that all of your pets are wearing tags with current ID. Opening the door repeatedly for trick-or-treaters creates plenty of escape opportunities. 

• Keep candy out of your pets’ reach. Chocolate and other ingredients can be toxic to them.
  

• Most pets are happiest wearing nothing, but their birthday suit. Costumes and masks can make your pets uncomfortable or even cause injury.
  

• Decorations can be dangerous.  Be sure to keep them safely away from pets. Candle flames can set fire to a pet’s fur. Hanging or dangling decorations can be an entanglement or choking hazard to some animals.
  

• Use fake cobwebs sparingly, if at all. Pets can choke on fake cobwebs set up indoors. Outdoors, fake webs may be a hazard to birds and wildlife.
  

• When going out trick-or-treating, leave your dog at home. Dogs can be easily excited by the Halloween commotion and a dog bite or lost dog will quickly end the evening’s fun.

• Popular Halloween plants such as pumpkins and decorative corn are considered to be relatively nontoxic, but they can produce stomach upset in pets that nibble on them.

• A carved pumpkin certainly is festive, but do exercise caution if you choose to add a candle. Pets can easily knock a lit pumpkin over and cause a fire. Curious kittens especially run the risk of getting burned or singed by candle flames.

• Wires and cords from electric lights and other decorations should be kept out of reach of your pets. If chewed, your pet might suffer cuts, burns, or receive a possibly life-threatening electrical shock.