Column: The dog was a devil, a horse was a cab and other Halloween memories

Asked by a small child in the elevator of the building in which I live, “What are you going to be for Halloween?,” I told her I wasn’t going to be in costume this year and when she said, “Oh, that’s too bad,” I told her, “But I did, a long ago, have a dog that I dressed up like a devil.”

She smiled and said, “I like that. But I’m going to be a princess.”

The name of the dog I once dressed as a devil (red horns and red cape) was Deadline and he was a German shepherd dog and a very fine dog. He had been invited in 1991 to what was then a venerable holiday event, a pet costume contest that had been held for two decades at the Parkview Pet Supplies store near Lincoln Park Zoo. Donna Dunlap, who owned the store with Lauren Merrill, told me, “Initially, we just did it for fun. We thought it would attract a bunch of kids, stopping by after school. We got one kid and nine adults.”

I was a judge for a few years, as was columnist Mike Royko, actor Ron Dean and theater producer Jane Sahlins and my memories are vivid. There were dozens of animals, mostly dogs and cats but I remember worm contestants, pigs, snakes, chameleons and, one year, a snail in a tiny race car. I saw a mouse or two, cats dressed as clowns and a lot of cats dressed as old women. I met a little boy who dressed (don’t ask me how) a bird not bigger than a hand in a Dracula costume. One dog was dressed as a witch. Another came dressed as a cow. There were a couple of tiny dogs dressed as ballerinas. One dog, painted green and in a box, came as a Chia Pet.

The most famous and certainly the largest was a horse named Lady Guinevere.

“She lived in Mundelein and each year was brought down in her trailer,” Dunlap said. “She was really a sweet animal. All the kids loved to pet her and she loved it. One year she came as Alexis from ‘Dynasty.’ Another year she was a cab. She came as Michael Jackson, as a fire engine. She’s gone now, but you can imagine what a showstopper she was.”

Now, perhaps you are wondering about some of the pet owners. Who in their right mind would even think to put a costume on a worm? Since the majority of contestants were dogs, it made me wonder if people who dress up their dogs are suffering from what Dog Fancy magazine once called “dogaholism.”

I think about that during the summer when I see dogs sporting sunglasses and bandannas. And I worry about them — the owners, not the dogs.

For Halloween, there’s no problem. This is a once-a-year fling. Putting a costume on your pet or on yourself seems to me to be a fine manifestation of our inherent urge to be playful and creative. It recalls the days before those attributes were robbed from us by “draw-between-the-lines” rules, also as a way to ease the demands and duties of adulthood. The American Kennel Club advises people to take their dogs into account and not dress them in anything that causes them stress or discomfort, or that could be bad for them, such as toxic materials or choking hazards.

The Parkview contest is now only a memory. Deadline is long gone. But Halloween carries on energetically. For instance, more than 300 dogs and other creatures are expected at this year’s annual Streeterville Doggy and Kitty Halloween Costume Party on Oct. 26 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sculpture Garden. One of the judges is Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd Ward.

This is the 37th year of this extravaganza and neighborhood resident Rosalie Harris, one of the founders of the event, says, “I never imagined that the Halloween dog parade would have grown from a few neighborhood doggies meeting up at the tennis courts in costumes to such a big community happening.”

Times changed and so has Halloween. In my lifetime, Halloween has grown from put-on-a-sheet-and-become-a-ghost simplicity into an all-ages bacchanal. There are few better examples of Halloween’s growth than George Garcia’s Fantasy Costumes (4065 N. Milwaukee Ave.), what I have ever considered the greatest costume shop in the world. It started in one storefront space and has grown to occupy an entire block — 20,000 square feet filled with more than 1 million items, including more than 5,000 masks and 30,000-some costumes and all manner of tricks, toys and gizmos for Halloween or any party.

Visit that place or look at the numbers from National Retail Federation’s annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, which tells me that 2024 Halloween spending is expected to reach more than $11.6 billion. Of that, $700 million will be spent on pet costumes, with the most popular being pumpkin, hot dog, bat, ghost and bumblebee.

Now I ask you who in their right mind would dress their dog or cat or mouse as a bumblebee?

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The Streeterville Doggy and Kitty Halloween Costume Party will be 9-11 a.m. Oct. 26 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sculpture Garden, 220 E. Chicago Ave.; free with requested $10 donation to benefit PAWS Chicago; more information at donate.pawschicago.org