REX AND THE CITY, PART X: The Curse of the Three-Headed Dog

in which Wallace is forced to dress up as Dogatella Versace at the world-renowned Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Contest

Here’s a picture of bright-eyed and happy Wallace in his Donatella Versace wig and dress. Shortly after I snapped this shot, he shook off the wig one final time and carried it off in his mouth to play tug of war with another dog.

Here is the illustration of Wallace in his glorious Versace dress (and notice that the front of the dress is slit to the waist, just as J-Lo’s was). I think this illo is by Susan Synarski, but I am not sure, because her illos for REX were usually so Cubist.

Hello dear readers -

Welcome to another installment of my “Rex in the City” serial column, which was published in the late, great Bark magazine back in the early Aughts. For those of you who are new to this Substack, I have been slowly reposting the entire series here to make them available online (in chronological order). Bark was primarily a print publication, so many of these columns were never digitized. So I started this Substack as a free offering to all my fellow dog-lovers out there, to pay homage to dogs in general and my beloved Wallace in particular. (Wallace’s name was not actually Rex, which is a bit confusing given the series title. This is a long story which I explain in earlier posts.) I truly appreciate all of you who are paid subscribers, because this enables me to give content away for free for those who cannot afford to subscribe. Life is balanced like that….

Anyway, I had such a great time re-reading this particular piece and remembering how much fun Ed and I had at those New York City dog costume contests. (Wallace, it must be said, did not have as much fun…not until we allowed him to shake his costumes off and chew them up). I loved these New York City doggie Halloween events so much that I eventually became a “celebrity judge” for the annual Tompkins Square Park Dog Halloween Parade, and in my final years I was given the honor of being selected as “Chief Justice.” (And yes, I wore one of those curly white barrister wigs and a solemn black robe.) I had to relinquish this role once I moved out of New York City. But we’re getting ahead of things here.

This column appeared in Bark in fall of 2003, and I had been reading Harry Potter at the time (and who wasn’t? I might add). The title I chose for this installment was very much influenced by the titles of J.K. Rowling, and—come to think of it—so was the Three-Headed dog costume which I referenence below. The year in which this particular TSP contest took place was 1997 or 1998. I don’t even think Ed and I had cell phones yet, so we only have this one picture of Wallace in his costume.

This 10th installment of the REX AND THE CITY/REX IN THE CITY series—“The Curse of the Three-Headed Dog” originally appeared in Bark magazine, Volume 24, Fall 2003, Copyright © Lee Harrington (writing as Lee Forgotson). Illustrations copyright Bark and the credited artists. I have no affiliation or agreement with any advertisers shown—those are all old ads from the original print edition.