Halloween used to be a night when children dressed up in costume and went from house to house begging for treats.

In times past costumes were simple. Cut a couple of holes for eyes in the middle of an old white bed sheet, throw the sheet over your head and you were a ghost. The more creative would invest a little more of their or their mother's time and make a more elaborate costume.

Seeing a potential market, retailers began offering ready made costumes for children. As the idea of off the rack costumes took off, adults joined in the fun and soon the revenue streams from the sale and rental of Halloween costumes began to rival those of Halloween candy sales.

Today there is a costume to match every taste, every size and every age from newborn to grandparent. While one would think the Halloween costume market would be saturated, this would be underestimating the creativity of entrepreneurs.

While the market for Halloween costumes for humans may be nearing saturation, there are still pets. Since, in many households, pets have been elevated to the status of full family members there is no reason not to include them in holiday celebrations.

So, it is only natural that retailers would stock Halloween costumes for pets and, like it or not, the pets are expected to dress up in costume and join the festivities.

This is no small market. In addition to dog costumes being displayed in stores, typing Halloween costumes for dogs in the Google search bar I came up with 1,840,000 results. Doing the same search on Amazon.com returned 293 specific costumes, while a similar search on eBay yielded 88 costume choices.

Of course I didn't have to search the Internet or shop for Halloween costumes to discover this trend. No, all I had to do was walk in the house after work and see our dog Chika modeling her new pumpkin costume for my wife.

Actually, Chika did not seem all that happy with the costume or, for that matter, any of the other clothes my wife dresses her up in. And this is why the target market for Halloween costumes for dogs and other pets is the owners and not the dogs themselves.

So, like it or not, Chika will be forced into joining the festivities this Halloween and endure have all the children who come trick or treating to our house ooh and ah over the little dog in costume.