How to Dress a Dog as a Skeleton

You've seen enough of cheesy Halloween dog costumes to last you a lifetime. Your canine can come dressed to the nines in something much more original than a clown hat or devil horns if you dress them as a skeleton. The trick to dressing a dog as a skeleton is to use body paint, rather than some annoying costume, which will keep your dog looking festive all night with minimal discomfort. A few simple steps will help you dress a dog as a skeleton and wow yourself, the crowd and maybe even the dog.

Things You'll Need

  • Dog
  • Body paint
  • Shallow dish
  • Sponge brushes
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Instructions

    • 1

      Pick your paint. Black dogs work best as skeletons if you are going to stick with white paint for the bones. You can also do the reverse, and have a white dog with black bones, which also looks strikingly fine. For dogs of other colors, pick a paint color that contrasts greatly against his fur. Hot pink may look fine on light-gray dogs, deep blue will nicely offset tan and fluorescent green could show up grandly on a mottled dog of several colors. Hold colored pieces of construction paper next to the dog to get an idea of what color paint will work best on him.

    • 2

      Prime the dog. This means to give him a good brushing to dislodge any dirt, hair clumps and debris from his fur. The skeleton outfit, which is going to be painted on, works best on dogs with short hair. You can still attempt the feat on long-haired canines, but you may want to give him a little haircut so the fur is even and easier to paint on.

    • 3

      Get your dog to stand still. If you luck out with a laid-back dog, you may not have to do anything other than ask him to be still and he will. Otherwise, you may want to attach the dog’s leash to his collar and keep one foot on the leash while you use both hands to paint away.

    • 4

      Ready the paint. Pour a small amount of the body paint in a shallow container so it can be easily accessed with your sponge brush. Here’s also where you can mix colors if you don’t want to stick with plain old white. You can add a metallic body-paint hue or even a glow-in-the-dark variety. Just make sure all paint is safe and nontoxic for humans and animals.

    • 5

      Paint the bones. Dab a sponge brush in the paint, leaving an ample supply on the tip. Start with the dog’s spine, outlining chunks of bone to serve as his vertebrae. Swath lines from the middle vertebrae down toward his breastbone to act as ribs. Dab paint in roundish sections for his pelvis. Draw lines of paint down his front and back legs for leg bones, and dabble some bones up his tail and down his paws. Paint his face last, since he may squirm around and wreck it while you are painting the rest of him. Leave a wide circular area of fur around each eye, his nose and mouth. Fill the rest in with the bone color and you’ve got yourself a dog skull.