Have a Pet-Friendly Halloween!

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Celebrate Halloween with Your Pets

Halloween is a wonderful time filled with so many fun, fall activities. Learn what you can do to include your pets in one of the best holidays of the year. Make them a part of fun celebrations with things like creative costumes, delicious treats, and artistic pumpkin carving so you can have a pet-friendly Halloween. I hope you enjoy these fun ideas so you can celebrate Halloween with your pets and make this holiday season even better!

Light colored cat wearing a black cape and witch hat. It is sitting in front of a spooky background with bats, pumpkins and haunted house

Pet Costumes

One of my favorite parts of Halloween is the costumes! You can buy ready-made costumes for all types of pets in the stores or you can get creative and make your own! Making your own pet costume does not have to be hard or expensive. You can easily use items from around the house and a bit of creativity to make truly unique and fantastic costumes. Need ideas? Take some notes from budget cosplayers!

A split frame with the same small brown and white dog wearing 2 different TMNT costumes; one is Donatello and the other is Raphael

Pumpkin Carving

Is it even Halloween without carving a pumpkin? You can create carvings of your pets or carve pumpkins FOR your pets. If you have small animals, they can have fun crawling in and out of the holes you’ve made in a Jack O’ Lantern.

Small-sized pumpkins can also be given to several species of animals to play with. This is a common enrichment item given to all sorts of animals at zoos. You can give the left-over pumpkin pieces from your carving to some of your pets because Pumpkin is one of the common fall foods that can be beneficial to animals like dogs and cats. Just be careful not to let them eat too much so it doesn’t upset their stomachs.

black guinea pig sitting inside of a carved pumpkin

Halloween Dog Party

What’s better than a Halloween party? A Halloween Dog Party! Be sure to read our post Tips for Throwing a Dog Party for details on how to make sure it all goes smoothly. To make it Halloween-themed, there are countless activities and games that you can incorporate into your puppy party. Have a dog costume or a pumpkin carving contest. Prizes can be medals, special treats, or fun toys!

Split frame with 2 different dogs. The one on the left is a brown and white dog dressed as batman. The dog on the right is black and wearing a Supergirl costume

Set up fun games like bobbing for ‘apples’ (use balls or treats like hotdogs like in the How to Host Dog Olympics post) or put a twist on a classic like pin-the-tail on the werewolf!

Baby werewolf standing on a pumpkin wearing diapers. There are bats, ghosts, and other spooky things in the background

Visit our Etsy shop for several Pin the Tail on the Pup designs available as digital downloads.

To set up this game; put dabs of peanut butter around the poster board including the spot where the tail should go. Each dog will take turns approaching the drawing and wherever they lick first is where they “pinned” the tail! Make sure to pull them back when they are done so they don’t try to eat the board and keep the board damaged. Make sure you get dog-safe peanut butter- some brands are sugar-free which can be fatal to dogs.

Tip: Wrap the board in clear plastic wrap or have it laminated so you can reuse it in the future.

Go all out and provide Halloween-themed treats. You can find them in stores or make your own with special cookie cutters to make them into fun shapes.

4 cupcakes that are orange in color. Each with a dab of frosting on top and a small milkbone treat

Set the mood with music and decorations. You can find some fantastic ready-made playlists on Spotify for your Halloween party and there is no shortage of animal-themed decoration ideas for your party. Buy or DIY banners that say things like ‘Bark or Treat’ or decorate with bats and animal skeletons. You can even create a graveyard full of gravestones of extinct animals to help spread the message about the importance of animal conservation.

Halloween Movies

Have a Halloween Movie night! There are no limits to the number of movies that have animals or animal-like creatures in them. Pull out the treats for your pets, pop a bag of Yak popcorn for your pup, and a normal bag for you, and enjoy the show while cuddling with your animals!

A family of 4 (2 females, 2 males)sitting on a couch with popcorn. The adult female is holding a small brown dog

Trick or Treat

If your dog likes people and is well-behaved, you can either bring them trick or treating with you or dress them up and let them help you hand out candy to the kids that come by. Some pet stores will even host pet trick-or-treating events and have treats for your animals to hand out as you make the rounds.

Halloween Enrichment

There are plenty of ways to celebrate by creating Halloween-themed enrichment! You can buy some fun toys from a store or make your own using the guidelines in our Pet Enrichment post.

We already talked about special treats and using pumpkins but don’t forget about creating Halloween Ice Treats! Use dog-safe food dye to create orange and green layers (be careful as this can stain carpets and take a few washes to get the color out of your dog’s hair). You can also use watered-down pumpkin as a base or create little pumpkin balls inside when you make the popsicles.

A brown and white dog licking an orange and green ice treat in the grass

Use chalk and draw fun things like pumpkins or skeletons on your driveway or sidewalk and let your pets investigate. Don’t be surprised if they rub on the drawings!

A ferret on a blue harness investigating a chalk drawn skeleton

A black dog investigating a chalk drawn pumpkin

Make food puzzles, towers, or even a maze out of cardboard! Draw some fun pictures on the sides or cut out pieces to make the puzzle box look like a Jack O’Lantern! You can even stack Halloween baskets and hide treats in them, so your pets have to knock them over to get to the goodies.

Ferret exploring a black castle made out of cardboard boxes

Make your pets a Paper Mache pinata. Zoo animals don’t have to have all the fun! This is a fun activity to do with kids. Use newspaper, flour, and water to make whatever shape you want. Think bats, pumpkins, or even coffins. You can leave the inside empty or hide treats or toys inside. You can also sprinkle some pet-friendly scents on it or in it and let your pets have fun ripping it apart!

a pair of small hands making a paper mache item

Happy Halloween!

Let your pet in on some of the Halloween festivities! I hope you have gotten some fun ideas on how to celebrate Halloween with your pets. If even you don’t throw a party, it can still be entertaining to put together or buy some fun enrichment items and let them enjoy the holiday. At the very least, you will have gotten some great pictures and created some fun memories. Get ready for a blast and have a pet-friendly Halloween season!

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