By Ed Payne
(RNN) – When it comes to Halloween, Americans sure love to dress up their pets.
And let’s face it, some of them are pretty doggone cute in their costumes.
More than 175 million Americans will celebrate Halloween this year and 18 percent of them will dress their pets up for trick-or-treat, theNational Retail Federation (NRF) says. The total price tag for the outfits is $480 million.
“One of the biggest trends this year is the growth of spending on pet costumes,” said Phil Rist with Prosper Insights, the company that did the Halloween survey for NRF. “Out of the 31.3 million Americans planning to dress their pets in costumes, millennials are most likely to dress up their pets, the highest we have seen in the history of our surveys.”
The amount of money spent on pet outfits has more than doubled since 2010.
These are the top costumes pet lovers will be dressing their cat or dog up in for Halloween, according to the NRF survey:
1. Pumpkin - 11.2 percent
2. Hot dog - 7.4 percent
3. Bumble bee - 4.9 percent
4. Devil - 3.2 percent
5. Cat - 3.1 percent
6. Dog - 3.1 percent
7. Lion - 2.9 percent
8. Star Wars character - 2.8 percent
9. Super hero - 2.7 percent
10. Ghost - 2.5 percent
Kelly Preston is one of the pet owners who dresses up her hound.
“MunchKin dressed up as a pumpkin because he is just ridiculously cute wearing this pumpkin hat,” Preston said.
Patty Smith Witcher goes full superhero with the family cat Cress, as she sports her “Batcat” outfit.
Marjorie Meder strikes a sports theme with her pup.
“Mandy as a “Rufferee,” because she’s better than most of the real ones!”
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