A clear sky. Low 41F. Winds light and variable..

A clear sky. Low 41F. Winds light and variable.

A while ago I wrote a column about the available inventory of cold breakfast cereals at the large local grocery store we patronize. An entire middle of the store aisle filled with varieties of breakfast cereals made from corn, rice, wheat, oats, and all the breakfast cereal fruits, fillers and fixin’s. It was a fun column and I think about it every time I walk through that aisle.

So it’s now October, I find myself wandering the aisles of that same large local grocery store and what store aisle is catching my curiosity? Of course, it’s the pet aisle.

Not the pet food aisle.

The pet food aisle can be formidable. The variety of dog foods, cat foods, bird foods, fish foods, and other pet foods is big business, no doubt. Like everything else, where once a dog had their choice of dry food or canned food, their modern world dietary options reflect the world in which we live. And that reflection includes nearly as many varieties of food as the cereal aisle that serves the pet owners.

No, the aisle in the pet department that is now occupying space in my head, rent-free, is the aisle dedicated to pet Halloween costumes.

I’ve never decorated a dog for Halloween but I know that the practice exists. I remember there being a radio station-sponsored dress-up contest called “Dogoween,” but that was a few years ago and I guess I’d thought we had moved past that as a “thing.”

Not only is it a thing but if my local megastore dedicates an aisle to pet costumes then every other megastore also does, too. Safe to assume then that the stores that actually are pet stores must have tremendous costume inventory, too.

Costume lions, witches and a wardrobe of others are there to clothe Fido or Rover for the holiday. Just like humans, feel free to invest in everything from costumes of superheroes, to costumes of royalty figures, to costumes of everything in between to make your pets trick-or-treating experience the best.

In choosing what to write about each week, timeliness plays a big part. My deadline is five days before publishing which can sometimes be an eternity in determining if a topic is relevant or not. In this case, I wondered if I wasn’t coming out a little too early — Halloween isn’t for another three weeks from this morning’s Sunday edition. In the end though, is it ever too early to discuss the topic of decorating pets for Halloween?

I didn’t think so either.

What I write next, of course, will determine how people really feel toward me and I have to be honest about that. Nobody understands better than me that if I’m in favor of decorating a pet for Halloween I’m either a creative, fun-loving free spirit, or I’m a money-wasting pet abuser. And, if I’m against the idea of using small animals for once-a-year, tongue-in-cheek, ritualistic, pagan celebration, then I’m either a stick in the mud or a guy that thinks his pets deserve better than being turned into cartoon characters for their next walk around the neighborhood.

Let me tell you all that neither avenue is a hill I’m willing to lay down and die upon. It’s a contentious world we live in and allowing this moment of levity to wallow into that mire will not happen on my dog watch.

But if pressed to pick a side, as cute as our little dog looks in his little winter coat, I must admit that I’m on “Team No Dog Costume.”

Contact Rob Ford at robfordwrites@gmail.com.

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