Lileks: For dogs, Halloween is the ultimate challenge

According to a post on the Nextdoor thing — you know, all the excitement of LinkedIn with the measured discourse of Facebook — some people are making lists of houses where dogs will get Halloween treats. Bring your pup along as you take your kids from house to house!

The poster thinks this is a bad idea. I disagree. It is a horrible idea.

You might want to show off your dog's costume. I understand. They're cute and you love them. Back when my wife and I poured all our unchanneled parental emotions into our first dog, we dressed him up in a leather jacket, complete with aviator goggles. "He thinks he's a pilot!" we gushed.

Of course, he thought nothing of the sort, not being aware of the concept of aviation, the sophisticated industry that has arisen from man's conquest of the skies or the complicated means by which people are accredited to fly a plane. If dogs could fly planes, they'd probably never land, just buzz the tower while emptying the latrines. They'd never take off on time because they'd always be nosing the front of the jet into the rear of the jet that just taxied up.

I have a photo of the costume. Poor Jasper's expression is pure misery. He didn't like it, but we were The People, and so this was how it was. When we saw his discomfort we took it off, and thought: "You know, when you dress up actual small humans, they laugh." So we had a kid.

Anyway, my point is that dogs do not understand Halloween. Every dog I've had thinks it's a night of constant threats. On the sliding scape of distress:

No. 1 — There are people out on the sidewalk. They may come here and take our kibble. I will bark at them in a threatening way to let them know that our kibble is guarded with unyielding ferocity.

No. 3 — The doorbell is ringing. This is DEFCON 2 because it often means workmen — large strange-smelling creatures who just . . . come in the house, and no one seems particularly worried about it, so it's completely up to me to spring at their exposed parts, lest they take the kibble.

No. 4 — The door is open. This is DEFCON 1. This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill. Kibble-stealers have breached the perimeter.

That's stressful enough for the dog, but when it happens every five minutes, it's like a zombie movie, with wave after wave pouring over the barricades.

Some dogs are quite unconcerned, I'm sure. Some old dogs who have entered the stage of quiet indifference don't care. They wouldn't mind ambling around the neighborhood for Milk-Bones, as long as there weren't strutting adolescent dogs walking around looking to pick fights or yippy pups who wanted to play, as if that was in the cards. "Kid, I'm a 104 years old. If I did a play-bow, my back would sound like one of those ice cube trays where you pulled a lever to crack the cubes."

Ah, but there I go, anthropomorphizing again. Dogs are no more aware of antiquated ice-cube manufacturing than they are of pilot uniform traditions. They're dogs. That's the best thing about them. If dogs did come up to the door for Halloween, you'd like to think it would follow the established rules:

"What are you supposed to be?" you ask, looking at a dog in a costume that has an enormous nose attached to its hindquarters.

"Rene Debarques, the French philosopher. I sniff therefore I am."

"Ah. And you there, with the hot dog costume with a list of questions written all over it?"

"I'm Oscar Briggs-Meyer."

"Hmm. Maybe half the people will get that one. Maybe something less obscure next year? Oh, I know what you are. You're a pizza delivery guy, right?"

They depart, and I'm confused why they reacted that way, so I ask my dog. "What was that all about? He was a food delivery guy, right?"

"Worse," says my dog. "He was the scariest thing we can imagine. He looked like a pizza delivery guy. But he smelled like a mailman."