Keeping cats safe on Bonfire Night

This post comes from pet containment company Protectapet as we have come what can be a stressful time of year for cat owners - firework season. 

In 2014 pet insurers Agria reported 22% more pets go missing on bonfire night than any other night of the year. While fireworks can be beautiful and spectacular, without understanding the context it is easy to understand why cats mistake the explosions for a cause of serious anxiety. Here are our top tips for keeping your cats safe and calm even through a perilous time of year:

• Train your cat to recall from an early age: rattling the food bowls, shaking a treat-tin or giving a high-pitched call can alert your cat to return to your house from several gardens away.

Source: author

• Create lots hidey-holes and beds in your house: cats with more choices about where they can go to feel safe will be less anxious.

• Research when professional organised bonfires are on: the weekend evenings surrounding bonfire night and Halloween can be cause for human celebration.

• Plug in a pheromone diffuser such as Feliway at least a month before the firework season begins

• Call your cat inside several hours before darkness on the nights you know fireworks will be discharged. If you have SurePetCare Connect, a selective cat flap that allows you to control your cats’ access to the outdoors, you can set a schedule for when he or she will be allowed back outdoors on your phone.

• If you have concerns about your cat going missing before you get chance to call them inside for the evening, ProtectaPet offer cat-proof fencing or garden canopies to keep your cat safe outdoors and you’ll know where to find them even if they are too scared to move. 

Fencing can fit to an existing garden boundary.  Source: Protectapet

"Catio" coming straight off the house.  

Cat run with installed boundary fence

Cat canopy fully enclosing the garden

Find out more about these options offered by Protectapet on their website and in the following video: 

Source: cats.org.uk

Most of these points are covered in Cats Protection's firework guidance.  

There are also methods of desensitisation, which can be started in the spring/summer months by using a CD of firework sounds at a very low level and slowly increasing the volume over following weeks depending on tolerance - calming supplement company Zylkene provide some guidance on this.  

Dogs Trust also provide fireworks samples to download to use for desensitisation: Sound therapy for pets