Halloween’s coming up and with a little DIY ingenuity, you can turn your dog or cat into a bee, bear or badger. Whether you are planning for a parade, party, photo session, contest or trick-or-treating, a homemade costume for your pet can make it more fun for both of you.
You can start from scratch or go half-scratch, adding bling, attitude or accessories to human hand-me-downs or garage sale or thrift store finds. The McCall Pattern Co. even sells several patterns for pets.
Lisa Woodruff of Huntington Beach, Calif., builds whole floats around costume concepts so her pugs, stepsisters Olive and Mochi, can take part in the Haute Dog Howl’oween Parade and Costume Contest in Long Beach, Calif. They’ve attended the event, held annually on the last Sunday in October, for seven years.
The pugs have been geisha girls, fish, sushi, surfers, flowers, “pupcakes” and amateur movers. “The costumes have to be comfortable and dog-friendly,” said Woodruff. “They can’t be completely indestructible, but they are dogs so they (the costumes) have to be durable.”