Monday, October 29, 2007

Halloween Is For Fun

Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press columnist and New York Times Bestsellers List author (The Five People You Meet In Heaven), had an article in last weekend's newspaper on the topic of Halloween. More specifically, the article was a commentary on adults dressing up on Halloween. In the course of the article he mentions in passing that some people go so far as to dress their dogs up for Halloween too. This makes no sense to him.

But it makes perfect sense to me!

Several years ago, when my Caesar was still a puppy, I dressed him up for Halloween. He looked so adorable and absolutely loved all the attention he got as a result. My thinking at the time was to make him appear friendly. So many people have a breed bias against Dobermans fearing that they are vicious dogs. I wanted to make sure my neighbors never felt that way about our dog. Dressing him up in a Halloween costume that first year we had him made him so much more approachable. He was the talk of the neighborhood. People remember that to this day (8 years later)! Just yesterday when we were out walking Caesar we were asked if we'll be dressing him up to go trick or treating this year. The memory lives on.

Sadly, Cesar has grown too big for commercial costumes and I don't have the time to make one for him. I did take a nice autumnal photo of him when we were out walking the other day though. This is a much more dignified picture of him but he doesn't seem quite as approachable does he?

Take another look at that photo of Caesar in costume and picture him walking down the street as a gangly puppy. He was 5 months old at the time with paws too big for his (relatively) little body. He was startled by every jack-o-lantern, tree witch, and blinking luminary he passed. It really was quite funny and endearing to watch him. He made everybody smile.

I think dressing pets up for Halloween is a fun idea. It's so very difficult to look in an animal in a costume and not smile or laugh out loud. I think Mitch ought to lighten up. Halloween is about having fun... an excuse for kids to dress up like grownups and for grownups to dress up like kids. And for dogs to dress up and make us laugh!

Who else dresses their dog up for Halloween?

P.S. This isn't the only time I "dressed" Ceasar up. I'll be sharing more of my boy in future posts!