Halloween Dog Treats: What to Hand Out, What to Skip, What We Pack

Halloween dog treats should be simple: one ingredient your dog already eats, in a shape or flavor that fits the season. Our pick is the Pup-Ornaut Freeze-Dried Dog Ice Cream, Pumpkin & Apple, with a bowl of cheddar bites by the door for the dogs who walk the route with their people. Everything we make is freeze-dried in our kitchen in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and the whole seasonal lineup lives in the Halloween dog treats collection.

The short answer

Skip the candy bowl. Hand your dog something made for dogs. Freeze-dried treats work on Halloween night because they are dry, they do not melt in a coat pocket, and one bag lasts the whole route. The Pup-Ornaut Pumpkin & Apple comes in little pumpkin and ghost shapes, so it looks the part. The cheddar bites and the beef liver are single-ingredient, so you can share them with a neighbor's dog without a label check. Toys from American Dog round out the fun, and those ship separately from American Dog.

What is safe to share on Halloween night, and what to keep away

The usual Halloween haul is a problem for dogs. What follows is common veterinary advice, and it is worth repeating every October.

• Chocolate. Keep all of it away from dogs. Darker chocolate carries more of the compounds that cause trouble, but no chocolate is a dog treat.
• Sugar-free candy and gum. Many contain xylitol, sometimes listed as birch sugar, which veterinarians treat as an emergency for dogs. Read the label on anything sugar-free.
• Raisins. The little boxes turn up in trick-or-treat bags every year. Raisins and grapes sit on every veterinary keep-away list.
• Wrappers and sticks. Foil, plastic wrappers and lollipop sticks are a choking and blockage risk even when the candy inside is harmless.
• Glow sticks and glow jewelry. Dogs chew them because they are bright and fun to hold. The liquid inside tastes awful and sets off drooling and pawing at the mouth.

If your dog gets into any of the above, call your veterinarian or a pet poison hotline right away rather than waiting to see how it goes. What is fine to share is short: treats made for dogs. Keep the candy bowl on a counter, not by the door at nose height.

What to hand out to trick-or-treaters with dogs

Plenty of families walk the route with the dog on a leash. A second bowl by the door for them is a small thing people remember. Fill it with single-ingredient freeze-dried treats and label it clearly so nobody mistakes it for candy.

Two of ours fit the job. Freeze-Dried Cheddar Cheese Dog Treats are one ingredient, cheddar cheese, freeze-dried into a crunchy bite. They contain dairy, so say so if someone asks. Freeze-Dried Beef Liver Dog Treats are 100 percent beef liver and nothing else, and they break into small pieces for small dogs. Both are shelf-stable, so whatever is left in the bowl on November 1 goes straight into your own treat pouch.

A few things make the dog bowl work. Keep it apart from the candy bowl so wrappers never mix in. Use a bowl with a lid if the porch is windy. Let the owner hand the treat over instead of feeding a stranger's dog yourself, because some dogs are on restricted diets and the person holding the leash knows.

Pumpkin dog treats: the seasonal one

Pumpkin dog treats are the flavor of fall, and the Pup-Ornaut Freeze-Dried Dog Ice Cream, Pumpkin & Apple is our version. Three ingredients, apples, pumpkin puree and nonfat Greek yogurt, freeze-dried into ghost and pumpkin shapes. No freezer needed. It rides in the pantry, the glovebox or a coat pocket and stays crunchy. It is a seasonal run, so it shows up in the fall and rotates out when the season ends. For the longer story on why dogs go for pumpkin, read Pumpkin Season: Why Dogs Go Wild for It.

What we pack for the fall foliage drive

Ella is the Sniff and Shift test dog, and her bag for a leaf drive is short. Here is what goes in it.

• Pup-Ornaut Pumpkin & Apple for the scenic pull-offs. A piece or two at each stop, following the feeding guide printed on the bag.
• Beef liver for recalls on the trail. It is a high-value reward, and it breaks into pieces, so one bag covers a whole day. It comes in 1.5, 3 and 6 ounce bags.
• The Dog Tire Toy for the rest stop. Durable rubber, shaped like a performance tire, in Small, Medium and Large. It survives the back seat. If you want the toy and the cheddar bites in one box, the Tire & Treats bundle packs both together from Pennsylvania.
• The Circle-Logo Dog Bandana, because a bandana in the window photos is the whole point. Cotton-blend, tie-on, one size, in White or Black. Black reads well against orange leaves.
• Water, a bowl, a towel for leaf-litter paws, and a zip bag for the treats so the car does not smell like liver on the way home.

Timing, crowd-dodging and the trail side of a leaf drive are covered in Fall Foliage Drives With a Dog. Short version: go on a weekday, go early, and take the county road nobody wrote about.

Spooky season toys

Treats are our side of the garage. For Halloween toys we pull from American Dog, who build tug toys for dogs that play hard, plus one plush from Multipet. Each of these ships separately from the partner, so it arrives in its own box on its own schedule.

• Jack-O-Tug: a carved pumpkin tug toy in 1680 ballistic fabric. The pumpkin body is 6.5 by 1.5 inches and the handle runs 15 by 2 inches, so your hand stays clear of the teeth. No squeaker. Built for power tuggers. Ships separately from American Dog.
• Boo Da Bungee Bat: a bat-shaped bungee tug, 12 by 7.5 inches, that stretches to 17 inches when the dog leans in. Same ballistic material, no squeaker, easier on your shoulder than a fixed rope. Ships separately from American Dog.
• Lucky Dog Candy Corn Plushie: the soft one, for gentle players. Minky fleece, 10 by 5 inches, about 15 with the tug handle. It squeaks and it floats. Ships separately from American Dog.
• Multipet Tailgate Lamb Chop with Football, 6.5 inch: the classic Lamb Chop holding a plush football, sized for small dogs, soft and squeaky. Sold and shipped separately by The Family Pet, an independent pet store in Nanuet, New York.

Supervise play with any toy and retire it when pieces come loose. None of these are made by Sniff and Shift. We carry them because they fit the season and the dogs who play with them.

Where to find everything

The treats, the tire, the bandana and the toys all live in one place: the Halloween dog treats collection. Treats from our kitchen ship within one business day, and shipping is free over $50. For the year-round lineup, the freeze-dried dog treats collection is where Ella's everyday bag gets restocked.