Costumes and Torture and Halloween, Oh My!

All of the ways we have recently tortured our dog would be better expressed by Eliot himself, but he is not speaking to us or anyone else right now. Just hiding under the covers trying to keep himself warm. We had been putting off getting Eliot groomed at Petsmart like we normally do for various reasons, but it was getting desperate. We could vacuum in the morning and then come home to hundreds of clumps of black hair on the floor again. In case you don't know this, poodles are hypoallergenic and don't shed, so this was sign he really needed a trim. The hair also seemed to be bothering him, so finally on Sunday Sergio and I took action.
We spent the afternoon maneuvering all of Eliot's angles and elbows against his will while we used Sergio's face clippers and kitchen scissors to trim him up. Human face trimmers are tragically underpowered for this sort of job. We needed whatever it is they use for sheep, I think. It took nearly four hours. Let me say that again. Four hours. And I assure you it was no more fun for us than it was for him. We crawled off the bathroom floor holding our lower backs and aching knees and groaning. Quite frankly, he looks pretty good for such an ametuer job, and for the most part, he loves being sleek. He bounces around the house flinging out his long skinny legs just to prove he can. However, he also shivers uncontrollably and spends all night poking his cold nose under the covers until we let him under. I have worked to help him through this time by dressing him in one of my smallest shirts. It was still so big though that I had to tie it in a knot around his waist, prompting me to say he looked like a ten year old she-Prep from the late eighties, and Sergio to say upon seeing him, "oh no, he looks like a girl wearing her boyfriends sweatshirt."
When we came home from St. Louis we also found masculine Eliot wearing an size 2T Old Navy girls flowered hippy shirt (pictured above), thanks to the friends we had left him with. I suppose he has every right to be angry.
We leave you with an old picture of Count Eliot. I think his eyes express his disdain for being dressed up at all. How dare we insult him like that!
Happy Halloween!