Three Easy Halloween Costumes for Dogs that you can make at home.
Get your puppy ready for halloween with one of these three easy to make DIY halloween costumes for dogs. Custom fit regardless of size, these can be assembled in under half an hour each using materials you have at home, or available for the corner shop.
Costumes professionally modelled by Willow our border terrier puppy.
How to make the base body for all of the halloween costumes for dogs.
This base can serve as the structure for any costume you want to adapt.
Materials – for the base body
- Cling film
- Masking tape or packaging tape.
- Elastic for tying round neck and tummy
- 1 obliging puppy
Method
The first thing to do is wrap your dog in a few layers of cling film. Tight enough to be snug, but not so tight as to restrict movement. Wrap under the chin, and behind the front legs.
As you can see our puppy is very willing to comply. Please don’t force an unwilling pooch into a costume.
Next add a layer of tape onto the cling film. The cling prevents the tape pulling at the puppies coat or hair.
Continue to wrap until you have the shape you need.
the dog is now ‘taped in’ to the body. You will need to cut a strip down the chest, and a strip under the tummy to get it off.
Remove the base from your puppy, and tidy up the edges with more tape as required.
The tape you use can either match the costume as it does for the spider and skeleton below (black), or the dogs coat (brown packing tape) as it does for the bat costume.
Tape some elastic to allow the costume to be secured around the chest and under the tummy. If you don’t have elastic, string will do, but the elastic will be more comfortable for the dog.
Our puppy is ready for embelishment!
DIY Skeleton Halloween Costume for Dogs
Materials
- Base Dog costume
- White masking tape
Phew all this crafting is tiring work.
Cut 8 strips of masking tape, and shape slightly into a curve. Add mishapen balls for the vertebrae and a final strip of the tail. Adjust the number of ribs depending upon the size of the dog.
DIY Spider Halloween Costume for Dogs
Materials
- Black Bin Bag
- Bubble wrap or other light packaging material
- Florist wire (optional)
- Tape
- Plain paper and a black pen for the facial features.
Method
First cut a black bin bag into a flat sheet. Next wrap up two small balls of bubble wrap in the bin bag, one smaller than the other. These will form the body and head of the spider.
So that you can bend the spider legs, wrap 4 pieces of floristry wire in bubble wrap, and then finally in black bin bags. If you haven’t got any floristry wire, dont worry it isn’t essential .
Make some eyes and and fangs, and cut them out, before taping on top of the spider head (use double sided tape, or single tape doubled back on itself).
Tape the four strips and tape them together, pulling the legs apart.
Tape the head to the body and the body to the legs.
Before taping the whole spider to the base body.
DIY Bat Halloween Costume for Dogs
Materials
- Black card
- Tape
Method
Take two pieces of black card, and cut a matching wing shape in each. Secure together before attaching to the body. As you can see in the second picture, I used packaging tape to make the base body, so its close to the colour of my puppys hair.
When I made this, I made an extra strip of card to raise the wings up, which is the tube in the first picture – however this wasn’t actually necessary and didnt improve the costume, so just ignore that.
With the base costume, the possibilities for halloween, or christmas outfits are endless. If you do make any of these, or adapt your own, get in touch, and let me know.
Finally – heres some advice from The Dogs Trust on how to keep your dog happy and safe during the halloween season.
Thats the dogs sorted. Try out some of our favourite costumes for humans: Scary Twins Costume ; Headless Halloween Costume and Dismembered Body with a Zombie Costume and finally our Road Kill Costume.
Happy Halloween.