Birthdays are for everyone — even pets. I discussed this a little previously and ended up asking how people celebrate their pets’ birthdays. Apparently all my followers are cricket pet owners, because that is all I heard from the likes of you!

Yet an infographic a friend forwarded got me thinking about this trend once more. After all, according to this fun facts list: an average of $50 billion is spent annually on gifts for pets. That’s in the U.S. alone. That’s a whole lot of squeaky toys or interactive toys hiding treats for dogs and noisy or feathered mice and scratchy boxes for cats!

Evite must recognize an opportunity. It offers several pet birthday invites in its gallery and offers several suggestions in its pet birthday guide. These include:

• Decorating with paw prints leading to your door and dressing the pet up (that would not be a present at all for my dog who HATES wearing costumes).
• Invite other pet friends, but keep the guest list small and the party time short so that animals don’t get too stressed out.
• If kids are attending, have them woof, meow or otherwise “sing” “Happy Birthday” to your pet in his or her own language.

According to an American Pet Association Poll dog owners celebrate their dogs’ birthdays in the following ways:

• A special treat
• A new toy
• Singing or wishing dog happy birthday
• Giving dog a party with other dogs or pets
• Taking dog to favorite place
• Taking photographs

An ASPCA blogger suggests a pet birthday party is fun for the whole family. Letting the kids plan the party and shop for the gift is a good way to give them something fun to do.

The birthday party also lets you lavish some attention on your pet, the ASPCA points out. Although, considering 70% of animal owners sign their pets’ names on greeting cards we might not need to be too worried about pets being overlooked.

For more animal birthday fun, I encourage you to check out the funny images taken from around the Internet of animals of all kinds celebrating their big day. Here’s just one sample for you (and the image starting this post came from the same list):