Welcoming in the New Year can be a wonderful time for us humans, but it can be a stressful and frightening time for your cat or dog.
Whether you’re throwing your own New Years Eve party or just live in a busy suburban area, with lots of people, loud noises and fireworks it’s important that you keep the safety and wellbeing of your pets in mind.
I am grateful that in Australia it is illegal to sell, buy or set off fireworks without a licence to do so, which has certainly reduced the number of backyard injuries caused by inexperienced handling of fireworks and the anti-social, cruel behaviour towards both people and pets. I appreciate though, that laws are different in different parts of the world – the below tips are intended to minimise your cat’s anxiety and keep your cat calm during fireworks on New Year’s Eve.
How to Keep Your Cat Calm During Fireworks and NYE Celebrations
- If your cat goes outside, make sure that you keep her in during the lead up to the celebrations as well as during them. People often like to set off fireworks before the actual event itself, and if she’s outside she’s more likely to get frightened and run away, or worse still get spooked and run into the road. Don’t forget that there are also some people out there who deliberately hurt animals, and with fireworks being commonplace on New Year’s Eve it doesn’t bear thinking about.
- Make sure that your cat has somewhere to hide if she’s feeling stressed and anxious. If she has a favourite hiding place, like under the bed or on top of a cupboard, try to make sure that it’s accessible and as comforting as possible. If she does run off and hide, as long as it’s in a suitable hiding place you shouldn’t try to coax her out. Let her be on her own until the noise dies down and she feels secure enough to venture out.
Image: Diana Parkhouse via Flickr
- If there are fireworks going on outside your home, make sure all the windows are closed and the curtains or blinds are drawn. It’s not only the sound of fireworks that could freak your cat out, the sight of them bursting in the sky might also cause her massive stress.
Image: Keith Laverack via Flickr
- Turning the TV on or playing music can also help to drown out any scary noises coming from outside. As long as the sounds she’s hearing inside the house are commonplace, and not too loud, she might not even notice the festivities going on outside or around her.
- If you plan to be home with your cat on New Years Eve you can try to distract her by playing with her. If she gets caught up in the excitement of play time, she’s more likely to ignore the stressful noises of exuberant partygoers and the distant sounds of fireworks being let off outside.
- There are also other options to calm your cat down if she’s naturally nervous – you can try a pheromone diffuser like Feliway or even a Thundershirt.
How do you keep your cat calm during fireworks on New Years Eve? Please share…
I’m not a fan of fireworks, but my neighbors sure love them. I find that Maggie, my senior cat, gets more distressed about them every year, and it’s the light (not the noise) that upsets her. I keep most of the lights on in the house and on the deck, and that seems to help a little. Might be worth a try for others with light-sensitive cats.
Fireworks don’t seem to bother my kitties! While they are not a fan of big noises, they usually sleep through the hubbub!
New Year’s Eve can be a scarey time for animals. We try to get our cat Shadow inside before any noise starts. If she hears desperation in our voices, that worries her too. Great post.
Great advice! There will be plenty of fireworks going off here too. Keeping your cats (and your humans for that matter) indoors is the best thing you can do around here. For some reason, people in my area think it is fun to shoot guns in the air to celebrate the New Year. It is always best to stay safe! My kitties will be safe at home and I will give them some calming treats.
My humans have chosen to live where few people are which means there will not be many noisy distractions. New Years to me will be just another night. Good information to keep in mind for the “city” dwellers.
Great reminder, and great tips ! We wish you already a Happy New Year as you celebrate it 9 hours before us ! Purrs
Great tips! Fortunately, we don’t have many fireworks in our neighborhood so everyone stays pretty calm.
Definitely need to keep the kitty indoors when fireworks are happening! My Papa says he lost a kitty years ago during 4th of July. They let the cat out for the night and he never came back. 🙁 Have a happy and safe New Year! *wags* – Gilligan from WagsAhoy.com
Great tips! I just wrote a similar post geared towards keeping dogs safe during the New Year’s Eve celebrations. Happy New Year’s from our pack to yours!
Boy do I hate fireworks and now we have to worry about how Rhette will do tonight. Thanks for the tips, I’m sure I’ll be wearing my Thundershirt but will gladly let the cat wear it instead. Happy new year! Love Dolly
These are good tips. Milita always heads for under the bed when the fireworks start here. Unfortunately, we live in the center of the city action, so all the celebrations take place nearby.
Those are some great tips. We’re not big fans of fireworks and such here, either. 🙁
Happy New Year, dear pals!
Great advice, I will have to bookmark this for Independence Day celebrations in the states as well!
We are not fans of holidays…because of the fireworks. There will be fireworks in our neighborhood until at least 3AM. We will be safely tucked under the bed.
We’ll definitely be staying inside. And there’s really not much fireworks around here for New Year’s…so we should have a pretty quiet night. Happy New Year’s Eve!
Great info! We wish you all a very Happy New Year!!! We are enjoying our Secret Paws prezzies from you guys so very much! We posted a few photos of us with them on our blog yesterday if you’d like to see. Thanks again for the wonderful box of goodies!!
We wish you a happy and safe New Year! It’s probably good we don’t do fireworks for New Year’s here…too freakin’ cold. LOL.
This will be our first New Year’s Eve with the new kitty. We’ll see how he does! I suspect he’ll spend a good amount of time in Cokie’s old hidey hole in the closet.
=^..^=
We’ve got our hiding places already scoped out! We hope you have a very Happy New Year!
Hugs, y’all 🙂
Fireworks aren’t that big around here for New Year’s Eve… but people in the poorer parts of the city like to shoot off guns! I don’t think the humans will be gone very long tonight, so I am not too worried.
Excellent post and information! I used to live next to a baseball stadium and every weekend they would do fireworks so the two cats I had at the time always were hiding when that happened. We want to wish you a very Happy New Year, it will come to you first! Hope your 2015 is filled with good health, joy, prosperity and possibility!