Copyright Chicago Tribune
No matter what you may think (or have heard), dogs and cats can’t talk. Neither can snakes or guinea pigs or any other species of animals that people consider pets. So it is impossible for any of them to tell you what they think of the increasingly popular habit of people dressing them up in costumes for Halloween. This is some of what Maureen Schulman saw on Saturday when she served as one of the judges for the 38th Annual Doggy and Kitty Halloween Party and Costume Parade held in the park to the east of the Museum of Contemporary Art. “Three hundred and fifty dogs, and two pairs of cats, dressed to the nines,” she said. “There was a Louvre jewel thief with the owner wearing a hat with the museum on top, and her dog, dressed as a thief, dripping in jewels. There was a ‘Bark to the Future’ complete with a little DeLorean car, a Trader Joe’s crew member, and Oscar the Grouch, complete with trash can. A lot of good costumes. Four people dressed as the rapper Pitbull, accompanied by their rescue pit bull dogs. “People love dressing up with their animals because, let’s face it, how often does one get to take one’s pet to a party? The atmosphere was so festive that hundreds of pet-less onlookers stood on the museum’s sculpture garden balcony and perimeter to cheer on the participants.” She was a judge for the contest, as I had been in years past, and her enthusiasm took me even further back in time because my relationship with costumed pets started decades ago at the bygone Parkview Pet Store. Without any argument, that is where our city’s pet costume contests began in the early 1970s. The store was owned by Donna Dunlap, who told me Sunday, “At first we just thought it would be fun and the sort of event that would appeal to kids, so we scheduled it for after school on Halloween day.” The first year, about 15 contestants turned up on a gloomy, chilly Tuesday and, Dunlap remembers, “only three of them were children.” But she remembers one man who came with a Mason jar with a goldfish inside and a dog collar and leash around the neck of the jar, and tried to convince her that his entry was an Afghan hound who was dressed as a goldfish. “Over the years, the event grew,” Dunlap said. “We closed part of the street, had a portable stage, sound system and a crowd of hundreds of people cheering their favorite costumes.” For a number of years, I was among the judges, along with such other folks as the late actor Ron Dean, theater producer Jane Sahlins, columnist Mike Royko and many other theaterfolk (Dunlap was deeply tied to the local theater scene). “Most of the contestants were dogs,” said Dunlap. “But there were also cats and gerbils, an occasional iguana, now and then a bird, lots of turtles, once a tarantula. One year, a horse van pulled up, the door was opened, and out trotted a horse dressed as Michael Jackson. An immediate crowd favorite. The woman who owned the horse became a regular, and brought the horse every Halloween after that from a fairly distant suburb. One year, my own personal favorite, she came as a carefully detailed yellow cab.” It was always a great time, a colorful, silly day. But, as Dunlap told me, “Now and then someone chastised me for degrading dogs by placing them on the stage in costumes. For the record, no one ever spoke to me curtly as to how I was demeaning iguanas. I do not claim to have any clue as to how a snail feels when he is rolling around in a race car pretending he is Mario Andretti. I do know, however, that dogs thrive on learning new things and are eager to experience group activities. I have never seen a dog rip off his costume and eat it. I respect any venture that allows a dog and an owner to join in learning a shared task and to also provide entertainment and camaraderie for a community of neighbors. I see no downside to this.” Longtime dog owner and trainer Jennifer Boznos agrees, saying, “Donna brought people, and their dogs, together. Parkview was more than a pet store. It was a gathering place for neighborhood pet owners. The best part about the Halloween costume contest was that it was pure fun. The dogs and owners could be close to each other and laugh and admire each other. Today it’s all defense and ‘Don’t let your dog get close to mine! He’s not friendly!’ In this dog age of ultra reactivity and anxiety medication, we need more Parkview Halloween costume contests.” Parkview closed in the late 1990s. The Halloween pet costume parties stopped. But there is no stopping the trend. The National Retail Federation’s annual survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, shows that projections for 2025 Halloween spending were more than $13 billion. Of that, some $860 million is expected to be spent on pet costumes, with the most popular being pumpkin, hot dog, bat, ghost and bumblebee. In the early 1990s, I had a German shepherd named Deadline. The stores had run out of the skeleton costumes I wanted to buy for him to wear to the Parkview contest, so I had to sadly settle for a pair of bright red horns that I affixed to his head and a red cape strapped to his back. He growled and snapped at the lens of a WLS-Ch. 7 camera that was shoved in his face on contest day. That video clip was picked up by other ABC stations around the country. It was his 15 minutes of fame and one of my fondest Halloween memories. rkogan@chicagotribune.com
