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New Year’s Eve Outfits for Small Dogs: Boo’s Closet, Black Tie Edition

There is a photo in the archive of Boo in a black outfit holding court beside a ring-bearer’s pillow, dressed like the smallest guest at a formal, and it is the picture to keep in mind for New Year’s Eve. The holiday is the one night a year a small dog gets to wear a tuxedo without anyone asking why, and a tuxedo for a dog is really a bib with a bow tie on it: nothing over the head, nothing on the legs, on and off in one motion.

That is the list of New Year’s Eve outfits for small dogs. A tux or a bow-tie collar the dog can wear through the whole party, a sequin dress and a party hat that last exactly one photo, and then the part of New Year’s Eve that is not an outfit at all: what to do with a small dog at a party full of guests when the clock gets close to twelve. The two questions underneath all of this, whether dogs like wearing clothes and whether they should dress up for the holidays at all, are answered on their own pages.

Wear all evening

None of these were Boo’s; they are the picks we think he would have loved, chosen today for a small dog that likes a party.

1. The tuxedo. A soft shirt-front with a bow tie and a bandana in the set, sized for Chihuahuas and Bichons rather than Labradors, and it stays on all evening because from the dog’s side it is a t-shirt. Seven hundred reviews. The small-dog bow-tie tuxedo and bandana set.

2. The tuxedo collar. The whole tux in one collar: a white shirt collar with a black bow tie that fastens over the collar the dog already wears, so there is nothing to size and nothing on the body. Eighteen hundred reviews, the most on this page. ADOGGYGO’s dog tuxedo collar.

3. The Happy New Year bandana, two of them. For the dog that has vetoed the tuxedo: reversible, tied at the collar, and the spare in the pack goes on whichever guest’s dog turns up without a costume. The Happy New Year dog bandana two-pack.

New Year’s Eve outfits for the photo

4. The sequin dress. A sequin bodice and a tulle skirt, from the brand with the largest review counts in small-dog clothing, so the sizing is a known quantity. It is a countdown-photo piece: on for the picture, off before the dancing. Fitwarm’s sparkly sequin tutu dress.

5. The party hat. A glitter cone on an elastic strap, which is the New Year’s Eve picture and nothing else; it is on the dog for about as long as it takes to count down from ten. This four-pack rates under four stars across three hundred reviews, and for a ten-second photo that is fine. The glitter dog party hat four-pack.

The midnight plan

A New Year’s Eve party is the holiday a small dog is most likely to be underfoot for: a houseful of guests, a front door that opens every ten minutes, and a floor full of dropped canapés and champagne flutes. Give the dog a closed room away from the door well before midnight, with its bed, water, and one guest who would rather miss the countdown anyway, and keep the ID tag on all night. The noise at twelve is the same problem as the Fourth of July, and it gets the same answer: the fireworks plan on the Fourth of July page.

6. The pressure wrap. A ThunderShirt is a snug fleece vest that holds the torso with steady, even pressure, and many dogs settle in one when the noise starts; it goes on an hour before midnight, after a few practice evenings when nothing is happening. The ThunderShirt dog anxiety vest.

Fit, in one line

Sizes come from a tape measure and the brand’s chart, not a guess, and the winter clothes page has the measuring guide.

Boo’s year-round wardrobe is in Boo’s Closet, the holiday before this one is on the Christmas page, the next one is Valentine’s Day, and if the New Year’s resolution is a present for the Boo fan in the house, the gift guide is the place.

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