DIY Pineapple Dog Halloween Costume

This year’s hottest fruit – the pineapple! This juicy treat just isn’t for eating… it’s also for wearing. This Halloween, turn your pooch into a tropical treat with a Halloween costume you can make yourself.

What you need:

• Yellow onesie
• Gold marker
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Party hat
• Green felt
• Hot glue gun

Instructions:

1. Lay the onesie on a flat surface. Using the ruler and pencil, lightly draw straight, sideways lines on the onesie. Repeat this step, but change the direction of the lines.
2. Trace pencil lines with gold marker. If you’re worried about the marker soaking through the fabric, place some cardboard in between the fabric layers of the onesie.
3. Fold the bottom flap of the onesie, and glue it in place on the top and bottom layers of the onesie.
4. Lay the green felt on the table. Using a pencil, trace the shape of a leaf and cut out. Repeat 4-6 times, enough to cover a party hat.
5. Hot glue the leaves to the party hat.
6. Cut the elastic band of the party hat. Use your dog for proper measurement, and then hot glue the ends of the elastic to the inside of the hat.

A Fun Twist on the Costume (or two)

Do you love the idea of the pineapple costume but aren’t sure if it’s the look that you’re going for? You can use this same set of instructions with a minor twist to create a variety of different costumes for your next Halloween party. The best part? They are all DIY and budget friendly.

Stick with the fruit idea but change up the color a little by turning your dog into an adorable strawberry. To do this, you will need a red onesie. Instead of drawing lines, use a black marker to draw seeds all over the back. Your dog’s headpiece should be slightly shorter to represent the leaves of the strawberry.

This is a great way to include more than one dog in your Halloween plans. You could even take it a step further by creating a blueberry with a blue onesie or an orange onesie to add your favorite citrus to the mix. If you have enough pets involved, you can show up to the festivities with a whole fruit salad!

How to Train Your Dog to Wear a Party Hat

Of course, for the whole outfit to work, your dog will need to be on board and willing to wear his decorated party hat. But the idea of wearing a random object on his head may not be high on his list of fun things to do. Whether his first instinct is to shake his head or paw it off, teaching your dog to wear his party hat for more than a couple of seconds may be necessary.

To do this, you want to start well in advance so that you have time to work up to wearing the hat for the full party.

First, introduce the hat by simply touching a party hat to your dog’s head and rewarding him for allowing it to make contact. When he no longer pulls away from the hat coming towards him, try introducing the elastic. Make sure to offer plenty of rewards and praise anytime that it is on his head for even a second so that he starts to associate his new accessory with positive experiences.

Is he willing to let you put it on without fighting now? This means that it’s time to work on keeping it on. This is a process of slowly working your dog up to the desired time frame. Place the hat on and reward him if he can make it 10 seconds. Do this a couple of times until 10 seconds is easy, then try for 30 seconds, a minute, or 5 minutes. The goal is to slowly increase the time that the hat is on your dog’s head without pushing him too far and setting him up for failure.

Of course, you will need to make sure that he is rewarded for doing what you are asking him to do at each phase. This could be an enthusiastic “Yes!”, scratches behind his ear (or wherever that favorite spot happens to be), a game of tug, or a tasty snack.