On Halloween, dogs across American will swallow their pride and submit to being dressed up as jack-o'-lanterns, hot dogs, or conquistadors, says animal behavior expert Alexandra Horowitz in The New Yorker. But these are animals genetically programmed to sense when they are being put in their place — "to put raiments on a dog is to blithely ignore his essential dogness." Is it inherently cruel, as Horowitz suggests, to make your pooch wear a costume for the holiday?
Dogs hate being dressed up: Anyone who has a dog knows they "feel everything," says Sonya Fitzpatrick, host of "Animal Intuition" on Sirius XM, as quoted in the Houston Chronicle. Costumes can make them uncomfortable, or simply create needless anxiety. Any time dogs sense people laughing at them, it "really hurts their feelings."
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