Typically, I don’t dress my dogs up in anything. I know they don’t like it, and I don’t like to force them into doing things they don’t like. When I rescued Lex, she came with a shopping bag filled with doggie clothes from her previous owner. The first thing I did was donate all the doggie clothes to my local SPCA, along with the bag of awful dog food there were feeding the poor thing.

But this weekend my nephews thought it would be funny to put Halloween costumes on the dogs. The one on the left without a costume is mine, the one dressed as a leprechaun is my mother’s dog, Emma. And if you knew Emma, you’d know how much she hates this sort of thing. She is the female version of “Marley,” in the book and movie, “Marley and Me,” and there’s nothing dainty or delicate about her.