Chopper's Halloween

This little corner of Chopper's world seems to have been a little forgotten. Chopper and I are still running around doing our thing - visiting Starbucks, running in Agility League (though Chopper is more of a prancer than a runner), outings to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica now that the tourists are gone. And a lot of work on my part.

Also one of our favorite holidays has come and gone - Halloween. In the spirit of keeping up Chopper's end of his adoption bargain he willingly subjected himself to yet another costume. I think he wouldn't have agreed if he had known I would make him wear costumes that matched me.

We went to the Zoom Room's Halloween Party as Mickey and Minnie and I forced him into donning the costumes again on Halloween for trick or treaters. We only got one trick or treater this year (which means Chopper got to sample some Skittles and he likes them). But on the positive side Chopper didn't bark at her or her dog that accompanied her to the door.

Chopper, however, was not a fan of all things Halloween this year. Our neighborhood notoriously has some GREAT Halloween decorations. Inflatable spiders, clowns with heads removed, talking lights, ghosts hanging from four story high palm trees. Everyone goes all out. This year one of our favorite houses had a few new decorations however - giant cats.

Chopper and I were on our morning walk and I was admiring the decorations and didn't notice that when we came around the corner there were two giant inflatable cats - with moving heads and glowing eyes - in the driveway of this house. These cats were at least seven feet tall and in the crouching attack position. Chopper immediately started growling and then barking and refused to cross in front of these cats - he was convinced that they were, in fact, giant cats that were obviously going to kill him. After a lot of convincing and more pulling on his leash I got him past the house but he refused to stop staring at the house and growling and even ignored his doggy buddies at the park. So what did I do - well the next day I videotaped it. It's pretty hilarious (though not as great as that first day). By the fourth time we passed the house that week he was not at all affected by the those cats and this week when a giant inflatable football player appeared he gave it a quick inspection and decided it meant no harm and moved on. Another learning/conditioning experience for the old guy.

Now we are getting ready for Christmas (work obligations means that we have for the time being at least had to "cancel" Thanksgiving at our house - although I managed to pick up some special Thanksgiving Dinner canned wet food for my favorite guy). Chopper's been on his best behavior recently - I think he's trying to get on Santa's "nice" list (as opposed to the "naughty" list).