Night Fury meets Night Furry

Why didn't we think of this sooner?!!
If we had, we would've taken Alpha to the Hobbes and Landes HOWL-o-ween Party for Dogs last October... and we would've slayed!

Well, there's no such thing as too-late-the-hero in this household.  So we still went with making Alpha's costume, for future reference.

Now one tip when putting on a costume on your dog for the first time:  If your dog --like ours-- is used to running around au naturel, there will be some grief dressing him or her up.  So work with what's already there.  Think of a costume that would take into consideration the color of your dog and the bare minimum of only wearing a leash with simple and light add-ons.  Accessorizing is the best you can go with a first timer.

In Alpha's case, we went with How to Train Your Dragon's Night Fury.  The costume is so easy and cheap to make.

All we needed was a roll of electrical tape, some barbecue sticks, and a couple of old black stockings.

The wing skeleton is a little tricky.  Let electrical tape save your day.

Then, we just slid the skeletons into each stocking and made sure the stockings clung tautly to the shape of the frames.  Electrical tape did the job again in binding the loose ends of the stockings so it was easier to wrap them around the leash.

The tail is the easy part.  We just took the left over part of one stocking and twined tape around it.  The knotted loop at one end is important.  That's where Alpha's stubby little tail goes.

And  --it's done!  Alpha was a little fussy when we started putting it on her.  But later on, she got comfortable and totally forgot she even had wings!

So I guess it's a date next HOWL-o-ween?

DOGGONE BIRTHDAY!

I've become one of those people who are incessantly pissed off by the lack of dog parks in this country.

(In fact, I may just join PAWS soon so hang on to your WTFs)

The trigger to my latest episode of pissery was Alpha's first birthday.  You know me, I always make birthdays special.  Be it for kids, for hubby, and yes... be it for doggie.  So I was planning some sort of picnic at a park.  And that's when the reality of it all hit me --pets here are HOUSE pets.  They should stay HOME.  Going out for short walks is the only leeway for these poor things.  But other than that, they're not going anywhere.

But thanks to my relentless researching, I found...TA-DAAAH!... Bonifacio High Street!  One of the few (very FEW) places here that welcomes dogs in their sprawling greens and even within the shops of the stretch's mall.  How invigorating!

So off we went there for Alpha's birthday and the bitch had a blast.

So did my boys upon seeing the numerous breeds of lovely dogs romping freely in the area.

The nice part is that I didn't spend a single cent on this endeavor.  Just gas.  And Alpha's cake is a homemade curnocopia of her favorite foods which she totally ate up --figuratively and literally.

Success is a doggone birthday and a doggone inexorable planner.  So there!