A fancy dress competition for pets. That’s where animal lovers spent their Christmas Eve this year. Pet Pleasure, a pet shop in DL Block, had hosted the event and pet owners paraded their loved ones in frocks, hoodies, jackets and even a PPE!

There were Scooby and Dooby, the handsome Golden Retriever brothers who came in colourful sweaters, tomboy Cleo, the Beagle, who came in a jacket and dainty Zoe, the Spitz, who came in a floral dress.

Honey, the youngest participant, was a three-month old Pomeranian. So tiny was she that she kept sliding out of her dress and cap! “We were very lucky to have found a pet boutique, where we took Honey for measurements. We asked them for an outfit in Christmas colours and she’s looking very bright in her red dress today,” smiled Seema Agarwal of FD Block.

There were several outstation dogs too, like Bella, a two-year-old “Indie” who was adopted from a shelter by Bangalore-based Siddharth Mitra six months ago. “I got her to Calcutta by train and she adjusted quite well,” said Siddharth, who’s put up at Kankurgachhi. Bella had come dressed as a “cool girl” in a florescent orange hoodie. But she spent most of the evening sitting on the cashier’s chair, watching the show unravel.

In a year when Covid dominated every conversation, there even came a dog dressed as a Covid doctor. Chicaboo, the BE Block Rottweiler, came strapped in a makeshift PPE suit, face shield and stethoscope. He walked around sniffing the other dogs, as if doing rounds at a hospital.

Perhaps no one enjoyed the event as much as 10-year-old Teerna Dutta of Karunamoyee. Not only did she pet and click snaps with every participant, but when Chicaboo came in, she excitedly took his stethoscope and placed it on her own Pomeranian Gingloo’s chest. The two dogs complied curiously.

“I have always wanted a dog but was finally allowed to get Gingloo a few months back. I chose a Pom as she would fit my flat and chose a brown colour Pom as that’s the colour of the walls in my house! Now Gingloo gets camouflaged half the time,” laughed Teerna.

A Christmas party had to have cake but in this case, it was a dog cake made of carrot, egg, flour and a dash of olive oil. “My food tester was my Beagle Cleo,” said Sulagna Das, who had baked the cake for everyone. She and her mom Jhuma Bagchi run the pet store. “Cleo loves food and will eat anything that stays put long enough. Why, he even ate up my dad’s dentures once!”

Cleo’s tastebuds lived up to their reputation and the dogs enjoyed their treat. The first prize for the fancy dress went to Dr Chicaboo and his owner Souvik Chakravarti had a good laugh over it. “We created his PPE out of tarpaulin material from a hardware store. But four tailors refused to stitch it as they had neither made a PPE nor a dog’s outfit before. Finally, a friend’s mom who used to run a tailoring boutique — Snigdha Mitra of AE Block — did the needful,” he said.

Bagchi, who runs Pet Pleasure, was delighted with the turnout. “Having opened up during the pandemic, there hasn’t been much chance of socialising with our clients but this occasion proved to be a good excuse,” she said.