The sky's the limit when you're decorating for your dog birthday party. Paw print balloons, curling ribbon, bows, bags and cellophane are easy to find and with a little imagination, can create very cute invitations, place settings, party favor bags, centerpieces and more.

Here are some ideas.

• Use small rawhide chews or inexpensive dog biscuits on your invitations. Wrap a ribbon around one, then glue or tie it to a heavy card stock, hand lettering the details of the party on the card.

• Use the paint effects on your photo editing software to create a portrait of your dog from a photograph. This makes a neat invitation or thank-you card.

• (Right) Ask guests to email a picture of their dog(s) before the party. Then you can put a picture of each dog on his or her own goody bag.

• Dog parties can have themes just like human parties. Try some of these:

Costume party - Decorate the party area as a haunted house, fashion runway or other showcase for the costumed guests. Have plenty of prizes on hand for costume awards. Make up funny costume categories, such as "Costume with the least thought/effort put into it" and "Most Edible Costume."

Fund-raising party - Ask everyone to bring a clean towel or blanket, money or new toy for a local shelter. Decorate with photos of the dogs at the shelter that will benefit from the donations. Invite someone from the shelter to come and tell about some of the dogs at the shelter.

Luau or Hawaiian party - Put leis on the dogs or even let the pet parents make their own leis for their dogs. Serve doggie drinks such as beef broth in little toilet bowls with umbrellas (take the umbrellas out before giving to the dogs). Have a mock limbo contest with prizes. Serve Hawaiian meatballs.

Western - Decorate with bales of hay or straw (these make excellent platforms for photos, too), rope and other Western objects. Get cowboy hats for the dogs to wear. Give your invitations or thank-you cards a Western theme with the headline, "Get along, little doggie" (or, if the guest of honor is a dachshund, you can make a pun with "Get a long little doggie.")

Mardi Gras - Using one of the recipes on this site, make a doggie version of the Mardi Gras king cake. Decorate food, table and party room with traditional Mardi Gras colors of green, purple and gold.

Disney's Pirate Party

Tammy Renne had a pirate-themed party for her 4-year-old Dalmatian. Disney has a patch over his eye, so she thought it fitting to have a pirate theme.

Invitations looked like old-fashioned posters. We especially liked the illustration of the dog with the wooden leg.

Tammy burned the edges of the announcements before rolling them up and placing them inside bottles.

Party favors were treasure chests filled with toys, treats and even a squeaky pirate toy. Very cute idea!

Tammy painted a cardboard pirate ship so that all the dogs could get their picture taken on it. 

A sand box and wading pool gave the dogs plenty to do.

There was also a costume contest with prizes.

There were 10 dogs and 16 people at the party. They enjoyed cookies with Disney's picture on them. The party was a huge success, and even the town newspaper did a write-up about it.

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