Dress Up Your Pet Day

What the day is

Dress Up Your Pet Day is observed on January 14. It was established in 2009 by the pet lifestyle advocate Colleen Paige, who created several animal observances, and it was meant to carry welfare guidance rather than serve as an invitation to dress any animal in anything.

Origin and background

The most commonly misread signal points the wrong way. People take stillness for acceptance, but an animal that stops moving in a costume is frequently not relaxed. It is shut down, holding itself rigid because it cannot work out how to escape. The accompanying signs are specific and easy to learn: ears held flat or sideways, the whites of the eyes showing, repeated lip licking or yawning with nothing else to explain it, a tucked tail, a lowered body, or a refusal to walk at all. A comfortable animal keeps moving normally and keeps doing whatever it was doing.

Cats are the harder case. They depend on grooming and on unobstructed movement, most object to anything crossing the shoulders, and the freeze response is both common in cats and very commonly misread.

Fit is the other half of the problem, and a mass market makes it worse. Dogs vary enormously in build, so a garment sized by weight alone fits badly on most of them, and a deep-chested dog and a stocky dog of identical weight need quite different shapes. Badly fitted clothing rubs behind the front legs, restricts the shoulder, or slips back and tightens across the throat, none of which is visible in a photograph. Two fingers should slide easily under any strap, nothing should cross the throat, and the animal should be able to walk normally in it.

Some clothing is genuinely useful rather than decorative. Thin-coated breeds, very small dogs, elderly animals and recently clipped ones lose heat quickly and benefit from a coat outdoors in the cold, while anything covering the body indoors risks the opposite, since dogs shed heat largely by panting.

How to take part

• Introduce the garment in short sessions with food rather than putting it straight on.
• Stop at the first stress signal. Stillness counts as one.
• Measure chest girth, neck and back length rather than buying by weight.
• Never leave a costumed animal unattended, and avoid small parts that can be swallowed.
• Take the photograph quickly and take the garment straight back off.