There’s no denying the nation’s economic woes, but there are ways of ignoring them — such as dressing your dog in an adorable Halloween costume.
Which is why Americans are expected to spend upwards of $310 million on costumes for their pets, according to a survey this month by the National Retail Federation.
Of course, spending figures become redundant when confronted with countless Facebook photos and blog posts featuring man’s best friend wearing some of man’s most ridiculous outfits.
“With the economy the way it is, people might be apprehensive about spending a lot of money on their own costume but are always able to justify spending money on their pet,” said Andrew Gauthier, an organizer of the annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade in New York City.
The parade, which has grown steadily since its start in 1990, has exploded in recent years, with 500 costumed canine competitors and thousands of human spectators.
This year’s winner was a Welsh corgi dressed up as a city bus, with his young owner wearing a bus-stop costume.
“With the rise of viral buzz blogs, people love sending pictures of cute pets in costume to each other,” Gauthier said.
Indeed, online photo-sharing seems to be much of the driving force behind the pet costume industry.
Mike Lewis runs the Dog Blog for the Anchorage Daily News. For the past five years he’s run a contest for the best dog costume, but this year he had to restrict winners to Anchorage residents.
“There are people from all over the country who literally comb the Internet looking for pet costume contests to enter,” Lewis told The Daily.
“Everybody is proud of their dog, and having a photo up on websites is a big motivation for putting it in a costume.”