Halloween: Keeping your Service Dog Safe
Halloween is just around the corner and with it comes fall festivals, parties and trick-or-treating. While Halloween events are fun and exciting and is called the spookiest of nights it also carries many dangers, particularly for our four-legged friends.
Before heading out to celebrate Halloween learn how to keep you and your Service Dog safe. While many people view Halloween as a fun-filled evening of friends, family, food, trick-or-treating and celebrations, the fact remains that the entire day (and night) traditionally centers around terror, being spooky, scaring others, pranking visitors and dressing up as monsters or villains’ so not to look like your-self.
In a perfect world, Service Dogs wouldn’t have a single issue with Halloween. They would calmly heel through the crowd, stoically endure (or even enjoy) each and every frightful experience and encounter, and hold down-stays all night by the candy bowl while serving as the official “welcome wagon” for thrill and candy seekers. The disorienting strobe lights, eerie dry-ice fog, sinister smoke machines and spine-chilling screams wouldn’t phase them in the slightest, and the seething swirl of strangely dressed, bizarre acting and unfamiliar crowd of children and accompanying adults tramping around all night would be handled with self-assured poise, control and delight.
Your Service Dog is going to come head to head with hordes of excited children operating on a sugar high, frazzled strangers herding clusters of kids from house to house, and severely stressed family pets who are being drug along for the ride. No one is going to settle down enough to be educated about your Service Dog’s or SDiT’s need for space, no one will read her gear because she’s just one more dog wearing clothes, and tempers/anxiety levels will be running high on this most stressful of nights. Candy and other edible dangers are going to be absolutely everywhere, including in hands, on the ground, at Service Dog head-height in bowls and liberally strewn across tables in every yard or on every porch.
Like it or not, the reality of Halloween for your Service Dog includes a lot of potential stressors, stimulus and circumstances that are dreadfully unfamiliar, difficult to prepare for and oftentimes wildly unpredictable, depending on the traditions in your area. The younger your partner or SDiT is, the more vigilant and prepared you’ll need to be in order to ensure his or her experiences remain positive and that Halloween is a time of socialization and safe interaction and not a setback, hindrance or training downfall.
Put Your Partner First and Take No Risks
At first glance, it may seem as if Halloween provides the perfect opportunity for distraction proofing obedience, socializing a Service Dog in Training or otherwise building your canine partner’s skills. While you and your pup would likely encounter ready-made distraction proofing, lots and lots of socialization opportunities and great conditions for out-of-the-box and creative training throughout the night, not every Service Dog, SDiT, trainer or handler is going to be able to safely navigate the Halloween scream scene without it turning into a nightmare. You and your family are responsible for your Service Dog’s safety and well-being, and as the person who knows your canine partner the best, only you can judge whether or not he or she will be able to aptly handle all of the challenges Halloween will present.
Here are some points to consider before including your SDiT or Service Dog:
1. You will not be able to educate people. People are not going to care that he or she is a Service Dog or that she’s in training. There’s too much going on, too much excitement, too many hyper children, too much noise, and just “too much” of everything to reasonably expect to be able to educate each and every “creepy character” you and your Service Dog will encounter. Please understand this has NOTHING to do with you or your ability and everything to do with the difficulties of being surrounded by large groups of fired up, enthusiastic and mostly rather young people. To most of the people you’ll encounter, your partner is simply another dog joining in the festivities. If you think you’ll be able to enforce Service Dog boundaries and etiquette, you’re setting yourself and your partner up for failure.
2. People will touch and approach your Service Dog. This absolutely cannot be avoided. You’re going to be encountering large groups of strangers, some of whom may not have appropriate dog manners, may not be “good listeners” or good followers of directions, may have communication difficulties or who may not be able to read or acknowledge your Service Dog’s gear. If your Service Dog doesn’t have the impulse control or training necessary to deal with being fawned over, fondled, petted, approached, loved on and touched without becoming overstimulated, over excited or losing focus on expected behaviors, you may want to consider going out before trick or treating hours official begin, finding a quiet, small event or simply staying home.
3. You will not be able to control your environment, other people or every interaction. If your partner is young, still learning, inexperienced or still working on socialization, he or she probably shouldn’t join you. You will not be able to control or predict what other people will do and your Service Dog will be faced with people purposefully trying to scare her while thinking it’s funny, screaming, popping up and yelling. Keep in mind that you’ll encounter environmental uncertainties, too, like decorations, Halloween accents, and ghastly props. There will be unnatural, eerie lighting, freaky sounds and movements and erratic happenings on every corner.
4. Your partner is going to take cues from you. That is not an abnormal thing but carefully consider the kinds of feedback your Service Dog may receive from your Halloween night. If YOU get startled by someone or something, instinctively, you’re going to jump a little, grab tighter to the leash, your heart rate is going to speed up and you may even scream or try to run away.
The Halloween experience is generally good-natured and meant to be frighteningly funny, but your Service Dog doesn’t understand intent, tradition or anything other than the fact that you’re scared or anxious. If you’re going to be triggered, upset, unsettled or anxious due to the spirit of the night, understand that those feelings and emotions travel right down the leash and will also affect your partner.