Halloween beast

Well, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is we only had 4 trick or treaters last night. I say "good news" because each time that doorbell rang, Sam would come flying out of his current place of rest, barking, growling, scratching at the door to get at his mortal enemy -- the 4 year old bumblebee on the other side of the door.

He actually likes most people. However, he has had a few incidents when, for whatever reason--a nasty smell, or perhaps he just "felt like it"-- when he took a strong dislike to someone at the door and has tried to bite them. It's only happened a few times, but that's enough to make me be very, very cautious about unleashing him on an unsuspecting visitor.

So, by the fourth trick-or-treater, we started to get the process down smoothly. I would grab his leash (we put it on him, so we could get ahold of him), and hubby would open door, offer candy. I'm sure our little princess & robot visitors thought we were torturing a beast just behind the door, because as soon as I'd get ahold of his leash he would start with the yelping, whining, pitiful dog noises-- all the while pulling as hard as he could (often, running in place on the linoleum floor) to get free. (On second thought, maybe our treat-grabbing munchkins thought we had one of those halloween tapes playing in the background to build up the halloween atmosphere.)

So-- the bad news is we only had 4 trick or treaters (perhaps word got out that we were "torturing" our dog (which, I have to emphasize we were NOT-- but Sam would like everyong to THINK he was being tortured), and parents didn't want their kids around that. So, since we only had 4 lone little mask-wearing beggars, now I have two FULL bags of candy sitting in our entryway waiting to be eaten. Ugh, I feel sick already!