Tips and Tricks for Community Cats at Halloween

For the Community Cats:

1.  If you feed cats at night between 5-8pm, you might want to push that time a bit later! Most of the trick-or-treaters have finished by than and will have gotten off of the streets. If when you are out and about and it still seems like the neighborhood is a bit crazy, I would not call for the cats. Just leave out some dry food and wait until the next day to bring wet food (assuming that attracts more feline customers!). The main point is… try and not do anything that will draw cats out during the trick-or-treating hours!
2. Food/Candy/Trash – keep a look-out the next day for any dropped candy, food or trash in your designated feeding areas. You may have to spend a bit of extra time cleaning up if you are in a neighborhood with active Halloweeners.

For the House Cats:

1. Candy warning again – Make sure your cats are kept away from the mounds and mounds of candy and wrappers that will be coming into your house.
2. Costume warning – If your Halloween costumes have anything that could harm the cats, make sure that they aren’t in a place where they could get in trouble.
3. Decorations – Many houses go crazy with decorating! I would be careful with all of the spray cobweb products and not use them with cats around.
4. Door watch – On Halloween, with all of the trick-or-treaters, your front door is opening and closing constantly. You might consider keeping your cats in a room with the door closed so that they won’t sneak out during the witching hours!  The house can also become pretty noisy and cats might appreciate the quiet of a bedroom during the evening.
5. Kids and Candy = Lots of crazy energy! When my kids did Halloween and they came home to dive into the candy, you could just feel the energy building up in them with all of the sugar intake. The cats will pick up on this energy and respond in different ways. It is a change in behavior and it can add to stress. This is another reason to keep the cats away from the kids for the evening and have them off in a spare room.
6. Feeding your cats. If you do decide to separate the cats in the house, then feel free to feed them in the spare room. Give them a nice Halloween treat to thank them for being so patient on this night for the kids!