Backstory: Halloween goes to the dogs, and lizards

Asquana is a very young mother, yet she's remarkably stoic. Her daughter is about 6 months old, already half her size, and perfectly behaved. But this is no tragic story of teen mothers. Asquana and her daughter, Godzilla, are pet lizards. They're dressed to kill and out to win.

The bad news for them is that first prize in this contest is an eight-pound bag of dog food. The good news is that two of their pet "siblings" are dogs, and they are possibly the lizards' biggest fans at this moment.

This moment is a Halloween pet costume contest at a Petco in the southern Los Angeles neighborhood of Westchester. Asquana and Godzilla are dressed as mother and child, appropriately enough, in costumes that were painstakingly handmade by their human mother, as she is called, Frances Howie.

Godzilla is in a crib, perhaps four inches square, that comes with push-button audio that plays the Brahms' Lullaby, and a baby's voice plaintively saying "maama." Asquana has her hands (OK, her front feet) placed on the rail of the crib and in the world of inscrutable lizard gazes, I believe this would constitute the one of the Madonna. Her lips even appear to have the slight upturn of that mystical smile of Mona Lisa.

I would say they're shoo-in winners. Last year, in fact, Asquana did win – with her own mother. But they face serious competition, the vast majority of which are dogs. Hence the first-place prize.

What these animals represent together is the rapidly growing phenomenon of people dressing up their pets for Halloween.

One website, raisingkids.co.uk, reports that 3.5 million Americans will purchase a Halloween costume for their pet this year. According to Elaine Binner of the eponymous Elaine's Pet Depot in Santa Monica, Calif., that's up from a decade ago by ... well, 3.5 million. "I first saw them [pet costumes] 10 years ago, but I only made sure to stock them in the last four years," she says.

She has been nearly sold out for two weeks, but you can still find a limited selection – ballerina, superhero, and the always popular devil. You can also get your animal to appear as another animal, say a zebra, giraffe, or skunk.

This doesn't appear to cause any identity confusion, and for all we know may have become an inside joke among pets. Picture, if you will, a bunch of pugs in green visors seated at a poker table laughing heartily about what animal they were last Halloween, perhaps under the influence of the dog equivalent of "one too many."

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Halloween costumes remain a relatively small part of the more than $36 billion spent on pet products each year. Products that, by the way, include pajamas, make-up, and orthodontia. Ms. Binner has several of those costumes. Clancy and Bubba, her Boston terriers, will be dressed as aliens or pumpkins. Her 140-pound Rottweiler will be in a pink tutu. Buddy, her blind Doberman, is exempt from the pageantry.

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