Dogs · by Rafael Almeida · 2026-10-30

Doorbell anxiety night is tomorrow: how do you handle Halloween with a reactive dog?

Tomorrow my door will get maybe 80 rings and my rescue loses it at about two. Last year I sat on the porch with the bowl so nobody rang, which worked but meant I froze for three hours. Do you crate, use the back room with white noise, or do some kind of desensitization in the weeks before? And has anyone actually had calming chews do anything?

22 sparks · 4 comments

Comments

Piotr Zieliński · 5 likes

vet tech here, calming chews are mostly placebo for the human. if it's really bad ask your vet about trazodone ahead of time, not the night of

Jasmine Cruz · 7 likes

this. we did a trial dose the week before and it made a huge difference

Paper Orbit · 2 likes

porch method is honestly the best one. bring a blanket and a thermos, it becomes a whole thing

Isha Menon · 0 likes

I tape over the doorbell and put a sign up. my dog doesn't care about knocking for some reason lol