Easy Halloween Costumes for Your Pets
Halloween Fun for Everyone
You can include your pets in the festivities as long as you keep their comfort in mind.
Halloween season is just around the corner. For many, that means not only choosing a costume for yourself but also one for the kids. That can include your fur kids, too!
Pet costumes are becoming increasingly popular for Halloween. Whether you’re taking your dog along while trick-or-treating, or having a party at home, or simply taking some fun photos with everyone in costume, you can include your pets, as long as your ensure that they’re comfortable, relaxed, and safe.
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Consider Your Pet’s Safety and Comfort First
There are a few things you should keep in mind when choosing a costume for your pet and your pet’s safety and comfort should always be at the top of your list.
Any costume you choose should allow your pet to see and hear clearly.
The material should be loose-fitting enough to allow them to easy movement.
Ensure that the costume material isn’t too long or full, causing your pet to trip or get snagged.
Avoid choking hazards such as sequins, beads, or other items that can be easily reached by your pet on the costume.
If possible, test the costume on your pet beforehand to not only check for fit but for their comfort level.
If your pet isn’t comfortable, you can try positive reinforcement using treats and encouragement. But, ultimately, if they are frightened or showing signs of distress, remove the costume.
Signs of distress may include freezing, pawing at the costume, whining, barking or meowing, rolling on the floor while trying to remove it, panting, panicking, or any other of the signs your pet displays when stressed.
Never leave your pet unattended while wearing the costume as they may try to “eat” it off their body.
Check out the Purrs and Wags guide to Halloween pet safety to learn more about the dangers to your pets during the Halloween season and how to avoid them.
Stress-free Pet Costume Options
If your pet is just not comfortable with wearing costumes, there are still ways to include in the dress-up fun, whether it’s a DIY idea or a purchased item for your Halloween fur baby.
The Classic Bandana
If your pet regularly wears a collar, this is an easy option. A bandana can be tied to your pet’s collar or separately and instantly up their Halloween game.
The Halloween Collar and Leash
How about a collar and leash set that’s decked out for the Halloween season? The Expawlorer set comes with a leash, a bandana collar and a bowtie collar so you can change it up for your pet’s comfort or just a new look.
The Halloween Harness
If your dog or cat is accustomed to wearing a harness, you can choose a harness with Halloween in mind, such as this one. It even comes with the matching leash.
Pet Pajamas
Is your pet a pajama-wearing fur baby? How about keeping it simple and just getting them an adorable Halloween PJ? What could be more comfortable than that??
Simple AND Fun
If your pet is accustomed to wearing pet clothing, putting them in a costume will probably be easy for you and comfortable for your pet.
Easy DIY Pet Costumes
If you want to do a little extra for your pet’s costume this year, but don’t want to spend a lot of money, there are easy DIY costumes that you can make that will attach to your pet’s collar or harness. If your pet is used to wearing these accessories, they’re more likely to adjust quickly to the costume addition.
These are just a few fun options that can easily be made in with some simple supplies.
I whipped up a few simple costumes in one afternoon to give you some ideas. I hope they inspire you to create your own awesome pet costumes!
Butterfly Wings
These wings are fairly easy to make and perfect to attach to your pet’s harness!
The Butterfly
Using black foam board, I drew on a butterfly pattern and cut out the shape. I used double layers of felt and cut out various shapes(double layered so the pattern could be mirrored from one wing to the other). Using hot glue, these were attached to the foamboard to form the butterfly wing pattern. I added a couple of pipe cleaner antennae, and a piece of hook and loop tape to attach the wings to a dog harness.
You could also easily use this method to make a matching set of wings for a child! How cute would that be??
I did learn that foamboard, while holding its shape well and being easy to cut is not the strongest material. Lucy ripped off a wing going through a doorway! Oops!
So you may need to reinforce it with a wire coat hanger, double up the material where it attaches to your pet’s harness, or use something different such as bristol board(poster board) or stiffened felt.
The Tree Costume
A simple addition to her collar, Lucy is all decked out for the season.
The Tree
This simple costume used Lucy’s collar as a base. I made tubes of felt by folding pieces of felt and hot gluing the long edge that could slide onto Lucy’s collar and then decorated them with artificial maple leaves. One for the front of the collar around her neck and then a larger grouping of leaves to form a hood of leaves.
Whether it ends of looking like a tree or, in Lucy’s case, more of a leaf pile, it’s still a cute costume!
It doesn’t have to be over the top to create a fun effect but if you want to take it to the next level, go for it! You could do a whole harness and leash with leaves. Let your imagination guide you.
The Sunflower Costume
Another simple collar costume that can be made in minutes and is comfortable for your pet.
The Sunflower
I decided to get Hunter in on the act and made him his own collar costume. I repeated the same process I used for Lucy’s tree costume for the base with tubes of felt that fit over his collar. I then cut out flower petals and attached them to the felt tubes. A couple of green leaves and a curly piece of green pipe cleaner finished the look.
The Bat
Simple bat wings made from foamboard or felt and attached to your pet’s harness or tied comfortably around their belly.
The Bat
This costume is about as simple as it gets but it does work best with a harness. Attached to a collar, the wings can be too close to your pet’s ears and irritate them.
I attached Hunter’s with a long piece of hook and loop tape to stretch around Hunter’s midsection because he was only going to wear it for a short time while I took pictures.
Draw or trace a bat wing pattern onto foam board or stiff felt, cut it out and attach it to a harness or collar. I also added the embellishments of the wing bone structure using a bit of paint but that’s entirely optional.
More Easy Pet Costumes
Other simple options for DIY pet costumes would be fairy wings done with coat hangers and iridescent clear plastic wrap, a mummy costume with loose fitting gauze (keep a close eye on your pet for this one as it’s definitely one that they could ingest), or a grey or black felt fin attached to your pet’s harness for a shark costume.
Honestly, there are sooo many ideas!
So, have fun, feel free to keep it simple or go elaborate if your pet is okay with it, and enjoy the season!
If you have a fun costume idea you’d like to share, drop it in the comment section!
