An Unexpected Lesson about Halloween Costumes

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

05 Nov 2008 05:52 PM

On Halloween, I decided to dress up my dogs Moose and Lally for our afternoon walk. Lally had on a green tee shirt with a cartoon character on it. Moose wore a white shirt with pastel lettering that says "charmer". (Both shirts are mine, as you might guess.)

I was pretty pleased with myself as we headed out for walkies. But at the first bush, disaster struck. Moose lifted his leg to piddle... and peed all over his shirt. I was so excited to have the dogs dressed up that I didn't think about the length. The hem of the white shirt was long enough that it pretty much covered his whole belly -- and blocked the peep apparatus.

I'll admit, I doubled over with laughter at the sight. One of my neighbors was out and caught what had happened and had this to say: "You're not gonna want to wear that shirt again." He also suggested cutting the stomach out of the shirt for future Moose-use.

Lally's shirt, as it turns out, wasn't blocking anything important. She had no problem on our walk.

But I do have to say -- it's not a problem I expected to encounter. When I've talked about Halloween costumes/dressing pets in the past, I've been more worried about fit around the head and neck. You don't want to block vision or breathing. You want your pet to be able to eat and drink in his costume. You don't want it to be too tight around the neck and be a possible choking hazard.

The shirt was fine after a trip through the washer and dryer. Moose cleaned up just as easily with a handful of baby wipes. And I learned a lesson about dressing my dogs! Next year, maybe I'll save the tee shirts and just put bandanas on the dogs like I did at the Fourth of July.

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Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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Courtney Mroch (9169) 06 Nov 2008 07:51 AM

HAHAHAHAHAHA! What a funny way to learn this lesson, Aimee.

Andrea Hermitt (5517) 06 Nov 2008 08:05 AM

My son did that when we first got dogs... now we buy special do clothes.