This is Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

by | Tuesday | October 20, 2009 | 14 comments

When no less an auspicious blog than the Huffington Post tackles the topic of pet Halloween costumes, you know you’re onto something. (Go look at the 3-headed weinerdog. It’s awesome.) No longer do we need to hide in the bowels of PetSmart at Halloween, surrounded by other fringe element pet people. Pet costumes have gone mainstream- humiliate your pet with pride! ;) Eh, who am I kidding. The average dog loves the attention. Cats are perhaps a tad more debatable, but I digress.

Before I had kids, I loved to dress my dogs up. Dog costumes are traditionally the province of the Yorkie crowd, generally speaking, so finding a costume big enough for a 90 pound Golden Retriever proved somewhat of a challenge. No worries, though, the delightful inhabitants of Etsy came through, and soon enough I found myself the proud owner of an XXXXXL ballerina costume for Mulan:

My husband and friends tolerated this with bemused indulgence, certain that once I had kids I would be over dressing up the surrogates. They were right.

Until now.

My kids are older now, and less compliant. They insist on choosing their own costumes. Store-bought ones. Licensed Disney character ones. Ones that don’t match each other. Bo-ring. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for my unwitting victim, I have a 4 month old furball who has come into this world knowing nothing other than what he’s been taught, and that will be, if I wear some stupid get up once a year, I get lots of treats.

I’ve found, now that I have the time to really assess the situation, that I find the exact same amount of delight in bedecking the dog as I did before kids. It’s just as much fun as it always was, maybe even moreso now that I can truly relish the whole costume-selection-control issue. I can’t wait.

My daughter chose to be a mermaid. My son is a pirate. Yawn. OK kids. When you are older maybe you will appreciate your mom’s creative genius a little more and let me dress you up as a serum separator tube and an endoscope. I’m not holding my breath. So with an eye on Brody and the other on the clock, I have 12 days to figure out if I have time to come up with something appropriately whimsical enough for my pup. Wish me luck.

Filed: Daily Life
  • http://annora.wordpress.com/ Tassia

    Good luck! I’ve been thinking about picking up a Princess Leia costume for Chewy. Drew thinks I’m inflicting cruelty upon my puppy by wanting to dress her up, I say nonsense!

  • wikith

    Puzzle and I are both pirates this year, as I already have the getup for myself (not to mention I get to wear it to work and my costume is both reasonably safe and hilarious with a lab coat over it all) and his could be easily and cheaply bought. My fiancee has plans for next year, though; Puzz looks like he’s smoking a cigar when he’s chewing his bully stick, so Nick has been cycling through different cigar-smoking characters.
    I think you should turn Brody into some sort of Goldenbeast – maybe an amalgamation of different animals? Lion mane, maybe tack on a couple of extra legs… Either way, good luck finding something!

  • msubugvet

    GOOD LUCK!

  • http://www.3beards.net Lisa

    Another post that makes me laugh! “. . . My kids are older, and less compliant.. . . “! They started talking, didn’t they??

    A friend gave me a box of material and patterns last week. I finally looked through it last night and one of the patterns was for dog costumes! I might just see what I can whip up!

  • Shannon

    Good luck with the costume – the pic of Mulan as a ballerina is great! Daisy absolutely refuses to keep anything on her head, and she hates putting her legs through anything, so I can’t dress her up (it’s hard enough to find coats for her)! My border collie, Candi, was much more “compliant”. When she was a puppy, I used to put her in my old Strawberry Shortcake nightgowns and all sorts of things.

  • http://finnspawprint.blogspot.com/ Susan Montgomery

    But there still aren’t costumes for big dogs. I have a dog again after 20 years of denial, and yes, he will wear a costume! But it’s a bit more challenging when the dog weighs 140 pounds and is an Irish Wolfhound. Although a LuckDragon would be pretty easy.

  • http://www.givepawdogtraining.wordpress.com Jenny Chun

    Good luck! Last year, I dressed my piggie looking pit bull up as a … you guessed it, a pig! She hated it. :D

  • Chile

    I firmly believe in dressing up the dogs. Except I’m running out of ideas because I will only put a costume together (like I do for my own). I can’t do store bought, it’s not in me. Although I will admit I did see the cutest dragon costume for a dog and really wanted it.

    Cookie will be subjected to dressing up again this year after me leaving her alone for two years. Since it was a Blade thing first and foremost I couldn’t bring myself to dress her up but now I’m ready. And she will just have to deal. She doesn’t enjoy it like he did but the treats in the end will more than make up for her humiliation.

    Can’t wait to see what Brody becomes!!

  • megumi

    I’m so excited for Halloween this year – I’ve been scouting out costumes at stores (none that I like so far) and going through ideas. Having never had a dog to dress up before this is a whole new world of costuming-goodness to enter!! The cats were… not cooperative… in the costuming department :)

  • http://peggyfrezon.blogspot.com Peggy Frezon

    Good luck making the costume. I’m thinking something clever could be created with one of those post-surgery cones. But would that be too embarrassing for the dog?!

  • Georgia Jewel

    Shorty is going as a Lobster as is 5 Yo son. I will probably go as a chef or Lobsta Man. The cutest catch!

  • http://dearprudie.wordpress.com Ashley

    Oh I’m so excited to see what Brody is going to be!! Probably more excited than I should be really. But I absolutely love All Hallow’s Eve. I will definitely be dressing up my pooch too. Target had an adorable banana costume, and I always like the unique (although last year Pru was a lady bug because she was just a pup and I didn’t want to overwhelm her), but I too decided to go the homemade route. So she’s going to be a punk rocker complete with mohawk, tutu, and spiked cuffs (felt so there will be no poking incidents).

    And you are so right.. children make cliche and yawn inducing costume decisions. That’s why it’s up to us fur moms to bring back the creativity!

  • http://yahoo Jeannette Shaw

    I love too dress my dogs up for Halloween,Dozer the sheperd is batman,Miss Gabby our shih-tzu is a convict.We even pass out dog biscuts.

  • Sara

    I can’t wait to see pics of what you come up with for Brody ;) Hopefully it will make me feel better about the fact that I’m not planning to dress my boys up this year, much to my dismay. Student loan payments have replaced my pet mad money. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy years past….

    http://lsarabethl.livejournal.com/243858.html#cutid1

    ~Sara