And the Winner Is...

Chelsea, at Hero's posted the photos of the costume contest entrants on her Hero's Pets Facebook Page and asked her friends and fans to vote for their favorites. Because she also works tirelessly to help adopt wayward animals, she said that if people voted for Oliver, the latest guest-in-residence (a beautiful twelve-year old cat who's mom was forced by her mean, new husband to get rid of him) that she would donate a twenty-five pound bag of food to the shelter where Oliver is from. So Oliver entered the contest dressed as.... (wait for it)... a basket case.

Three years ago Duncan entered the contest as a Greaser and took second place, beat by a lovely and anything-but-frightening pair of ghosts. This year the contest was tough but the voters decided Duncan, dressed as a snowboarder dude, complete with goggles and an unruly blond wig (which did not go over well) was the winner. We got to go in and pick our prize but decided that Oliver, who is an awesome guy, despite his extreme and very verbal dislike of dogs, deserved to be rewarded so we donated the prize to him and his shelter. Duncan, who was a trooper and did the right thing, got to pick out some new toys as his reward from me, so we finished out our Under the Sea Collection by bringing home Bubbles, a bright orange catfish, and Buck, a nearly neon green seahorse, to play with Duncan and his hammerhead, Bash.

Chelsea threw in a bag of Polka Dog Bakery Chicken Little Mighty Dog Treats and a tiny bit of something dried and curling which Dunc plucked out of a low basket and may have been a bit of bull junk or some winding internal organ at one point in its existence (I don't know. I don't care. I stopped asking after I helped with inventory a few years ago and had to count The Wall of Terror and its baskets of grizzly, greasy contents).

I'm happy we could help Oliver and his friends back at the rescue and happy that Dunc made even more friends.