Dogs and Halloween

Reuters:

An unprecedented 31.3 million Americans plan to costume their pets this year. The largest group of these are millennials aged 25 to 34, the National Retail Federation said.

“Spending on pet costumes alone is expected to reach $480 million,” said NRF spokeswoman Ana Serafin Smith.

Dog skeletons are showing up in ghoulish decorations. Sales of bony decorations modeled on breeds ranging from Chihuahua to Doberman have grown 18 percent since the decorations were introduced in 2014, said spokeswoman Michelle Johnson of Oriental Trading, the party goods giant.

Long known as a holiday for children, Halloween has increasingly become dog-centric in America as the U.S. birth rate has tumbled, reaching an all-time low in 2017.

“Pets are taking the place of children for many people,” said Jean Twenge, author of “Generation Me,” a book about millennials. “People want to dress them up in costumes for Halloween and include them in the family portrait.”

For some couples, a dog serves as a “kind of dress rehearsal for parenting,” said University of Pennsylvania Professor James Serpell, who lectures on human-animal interactions.

Putting the pooch in a Halloween getup is “part of a national trend toward treating pets, especially dogs, as junior family members – analogous to kids who never grow up,” Serpell said.