“Have you seen a contraption like this?” asked a bartender at Old Stanleys, the night before Halloween, when the red carpet was laid out in the backyard of the Wyckoff Street dive for Bushwick Bark’s 11th Annual Doggy Costume Contest. She was pointing at a dog inside a miniature helicopter, surrounded by owners dressed like Sam Neill and Laura Dern from Jurassic Park, among the 47 that showed up that night. They were walking the carpet in a noble lineage; back in 2016, when the local pet store brand held the contest inside Pine Box Rock Shop, there were no fewer than two dogs dressed as Eleven, the character from Stranger Things.
Other notable players this year included an inventive performance of the ‘Bend and Snap’ scene in Legally Blonde, complete with a smiling human as the hunky UPS driver; a pair of Trader Joe’s employees; a dog dressed as Friday the 13th‘s Jason, adorned with a minimally decorated lizard; a dog dressed as an orange paired with an owner dressed as a tree. Among the more interesting solo dog outfits was a tiny, dawdling take on the failed Australian breakdancer Raygun, a highlight of Summer Olympics in Paris. A personal highlight was the smallish dog wandering around in a popcorn costume, carried along by a human dressed in Nicole Kidman’s lined pantsuit from the AMC ads.
Most of these dogs won honorable mentions from the pet store’s handful of judges — a trio that included local “Shelter Dog Magician” John Stessel, Jolie Dudley, who runs the nonprofit Must Love Dogs and Comedy, and Christina Choi, a dog-themed Etsy artist. The winner they chose, however, turned out to be a pug with over 1,2000 followers on Instagram named Mini, “rescued by my dads in South Florida,” according to his bio.
The trio had come dressed up as a kissing booth, complete with a large extended tongue affixed to Mini’s mouth, which protruded limply downward from her mouth. It was a popular choice; the bartender had even bent down to give her a kiss.
Photos taken by Cait Flynn for Bushwick Daily.
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