The end of the costume, or do dogs like to dress up for Halloween?

Angel wings, mm, mm, good

Or paw lickin' good. Something like that.

It only took a second, and I was right there, only facing the wrong way to catch them before it was too late. I had left the angel costume, over which I had labored for hours, on a chair at the bottom of the stairs, near Rapide's back-supporting comfort foam mattress bed, and there it sat for a day, two days, and nearly a third. Then, I hear the noise of paper being rustled energetically and turn to look behind me to see what Rapide has gotten into. In her maw is a clump of wet tissue paper and feathers, more strewn at her paws, the elastic band with the other half of the snap that held them to her back lying in the middle, and Fia's tail end just disappearing under the end table. It takes me about 3 seconds for the carnage to register as Fia's angel wings.

"Non, Rapide!" I shouted, dashing around the other end of the sofa and coming to face Rapide, who dropped her mouthful as my hand flew out to grab it all up and -- do what? Save it? For memories of how hard I worked, only to be so careless? I dropped what I had in my hand and reached for the camera instead, the urge to document always present, always strong.

Fia crouched under the edge of the low table, melting into the shadows, trying to get a bit without my seeing her.

Or, I attribute too much cunning to so small a dog.

The boa was lying on the floor near the door. I thought of Sam's having spotted the halo in Fia's mouth last evening, as she played on the floor between him and Audouin. He had pried it loose.

"Fia! Lâche ça! Fia!," he demanded, and then, "Ugh, Mom! C'est tout humide --". He handed me the twisted, damp bit of pink and black pipe cleaner, wire and ribbon.

"Fia!" said my husband, looking up from the floor at me and bursting out in a delighted laugh, "Elle a un ruban dans la gueule! Mais ça vient d'où?" he asked, before returning to trying to get the ribbon out from between her pointy little baby teeth. "Fia! Fia, donne ça. Fia --"

I pointed to the halo. The ribbon she was trying to hang onto in her mouth was the other one that tied the halo to her lovely sleek neck. He handed me the length of sheer black ribbon, which I lay on top of the soggy pipe cleaner halo, the little silver stars hanging precariously where she had chewed on it.

This, then, is that to which my hard work comes. I consoled myself.

You still have the photographs, you know, and it's not like she was going to wear it ever again. Now you can throw it away instead of trying to find a place to save it.

"I know, but why do I feel so badly?"

Well, maybe you have the answer to your question, do dogs like to wear Halloween costumes. At least, they like to eat them.

"I know. It does feel a little like just desserts."

I had just finished reading an article across which I had come in the New York Times, reading a blog entry in the Well section, All the Good Dogs You've Loved Before by Dana Jennings, diagnosed a year ago with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and there, down in the right column under "Comments of the Moment" was the first one, which read:

"Why would anyone dress up a dog? Everyone knows that dressing up is for cats."

It was signed Jim Frank, and the title of the blog entry on which he was commenting was Do Dogs Like to Dress Up for Halloween? Obviously Mr. Frank and all the others who had commented on the post do not read my blog, or else they might have shared their thoughts on the subject in response to my post of yesterday, L'Halloween, bienvenus les trick or treaters. Happily, I am not a jealous sort, and I don't even really expect anyone to read me. I write on as a form of addiction.

What would I do if I didn't anymore?

I clicked on the post title, and the name Barnard College jumped off the screen at me. Tara Parker-Pope had just read an article in the most recent New Yorker in which Barnard professor of psychology, animal behavior and canid cognition (I swear, they didn't have that when I was there), Alexandra Horowitz tells the reader that dogs probably don't like being dressed up, only her reasoning, it struck me, is as overblown as architectural theory built of deconstructivist philosopher Jacques Derrida's thoughts: elaborate cloud castles of canid cognition. She tells us that alpha dogs show dominance by doing something referred to as "standing over", or as she describes it the dominant dog "literally placing his body on top of and touching the other, as a scolding or a mild putting-in-one’s-place." As such:

"To a dog, a costume, fitting tight around the dog’s midriff and back, might well reproduce that ancestral feeling. So the principal experience of wearing a costume would not be the experience of festivity; rather, the costume produces the discomfiting feeling that someone higher ranking is nearby."

Now, I don't have to point this out because another reader did it for me in the comments section, but this would mean that dogs resent those dog coats you see the breeds without Labrador Retrievers' undercoats to keep them warm when the temperatures hover around and drop below freezing, which they don't. You only have to take a second -- and have a little more respect for the bounds of canid cognition --, to see that there is a world of difference between an alpha dog placing his body on top of you and dominating you and your trusted alpha mistress or master placing an item of clothing on your back and then standing back to offer you a tasty liver treat, clapping with delight, and snapping a terrific photograph before removing the whole thing.

Puh-lease. It would appear that at least Ingrid agrees with me:

“ I think dogs tear costumes off because they feel strange and uncomfortable, not because they think they're being scolded by an invisible wolf.”

Thank you, Ingrid, for that refreshing bit of common sense.

Not that this answers the question whether our dogs like being dressed up for Halloween, but I'll let you read the other comments and decide for yourself. Personally, I tend to agree with those who point out that their dogs show great forbearance of their young mistresses and masters, who dress them up and play with them, taking it as loving attention, and not thoughtless domination and correction. But, anyone who is worth anything as a dog owner can tell when Rex has had enough, is willing to play along, or at least humor a silly master, IMHO.

I can tell you that when we went to visit family after the Trick or Treaters' ringing at the doorbell petered out (and they didn't throw this 12-week-old puppy off one little bit, contrary to what that wet sock, doom and gloom vet had to say in the comments), and I had put her costume back on her for the benefit of my niece and nephews, she trotted right up the sidewalk, into the gate, stopped for a pipi, her wing tips grazing the stone pavers as she squatted delicately along the railroad ties and woody ornamentals, and then trotted right on up the front steps and into the hall to say her hellos, boa, drooping halo, wings akimbo, and all.

Besides, costumes make great chew toys after Halloween. With proper supervision, of course.
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Women's work

The ivy burns

"That's no work for a woman," my elderly Portuguese neighbor stated firmly.

Her companion, a neighbor from her end of the street nodded, or smiled, in something vaguely resembling assent, and I felt as though I should stop immediately what I was doing and go take a shower and put on a dress. A little powder and lipstick.

Maria had told me this the day before, when she had first been on her way up the lane to collect walnuts from the tree in her garden, bordering the fields beyond our bottom garden and the lane. I considered whether she said this with disapprobation or sympathy, but since my husband was not next to me to defend himself in the latter case (or the former), I decided it was up to my to stand up for my honor, which was possibly, almost certainly, as much in question as his own. I chose to smile and reply with alarming candidness.

"Oui, mais mon mari --" I thought of him, working at the hospital, and myself at home, doing as I pleased and what needed to be done by someone, "il a autres choses à faire."

Her companion smiled, and nodded. I thought I had found an ally, someone who understood that someone had to earn a living around here, but I thought I'd add for good measure and to make sure my case was plead, "Quelqu'un doit travailler pour gagner la vie, et un jardinier pour faire ce travail, ben, c'est cher," and suddenly worried that I had brought us too low in their estimation, I hastened to add, "et puis, ils ne font souvent pas ni aussi bien que soi ni comme on veut." I finished with a brilliant smile and brandished my long handled pruning shears to go at the seriously overgrown ivy again.

Maria did not look convinced and continued to grumble amiably enough under her breath about work "fitting a woman" and this being "too much for a woman."

Later, my husband heard the incident and said, "Elles ne te connaissent pas évidemment."

I am not certain that that would have helped my image any more, either.

And was that what I was expecting when I left Barnard and the Ivy League with my diplomas all those years ago, my feminism shining, my certitude in my brilliant future even more radiant, until it came time to look for a first job, anyway, to arrive in this ivy jungle, where I prune and burn the garden's excess growth for my doctor husband, raise my puppies and care for my animals, bury even the wild ones who come here to die, and penning what amounts to a public journal to keep myself from wandering past the irretrievable edge?

He tells me, "Do whatever you like. All I ask is that you be content in return with what I can earn, and that you be happy," and he means it honestly, but he is happiest when I am involved with and kind to his plentiful offspring.

I can tell you about this woman's work, but I can also tell you about Maria's, a woman who spent her life tending to her neighbors' housecleaning and ironing for small pay, caring for her husband and children for none, and mourning the one who lay as peacefully before her eyes on the pavement, his school bag knocked from his small arms, as he had only moments before in his bed, hit by a car while he waited for the school bus to come.

I imagined I would hire someone like Maria to do the woman's work, while I went to the office, kissing my children good-bye and leaving detailed and enlightened instructions for their excellent care so that I could do the same at the office to get office towers and museums, airports and schools, or at least homes, built. Would she have looked at me disapprovingly for that, too? Was my life really so much harder in her eyes, cutting out all that overgrown ivy and dragging it to a monstrously large pile, than her own? What is the difference between a constantly replenishing mountain of someone else's laundry and your own to iron and a constantly replenishing mountain of ivy to cut back, and your own mountain of laundry to do, as well?

What, Maria, is a woman's work?

All the ivy is on the burning pile, which is sending a thick column of smoke into the drizzly October sky. The season to burn has arrived, just in time, but someone took half of what I had piled at the corner of the field until the time to burn came. I cannot imagine why, nor that it was from kindness, unless the village caretaker had room in his truck and more than a little pity for me, knowing my hands are full with a new puppy.

Or maybe Maria told him to help "cette femme qui fait le travail d'un homme, le travail que son mari devrait faire" and went on her way to collect her walnuts the tree in her garden gives.
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