Halloween Humor: There's A Dog Loose!

Halloween has always been a fun holiday for me. I used to love to get dressed up and trick or treat. As a new nurse, I decided to dress up for Halloween, both for my enjoyment and to entertain my patients. I thought it would be a wonderful way to spend the day with my patients and bring some of the Halloween festivities to them. Nurses General Nursing Article

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Halloween Humor: There's A Dog Loose!

We had plans for children to visit the long-term care facility I worked at and we were going to hand out candy. I thought it might just liven things up a bit if I were to dress up. Plus, it isn't so uncommon to for nurses to dress up in nursing homes for Halloween.

I put much thought into my costume. I didn't want to wear anything that would impede my working ability or scare the patients. I finally decided to dress up as a dalmatian. It would be easy enough to assemble and would not scare the children or patients.

I put my hair up in pigtails, painted a black spot on my nose and a few black dots on my face, and pinned a tail to the back of my costume. I even fashioned a collar and rabies tag out of a choker necklace. I wore white scrubs and put black spots all over them.

Looking in the mirror, I thought I was pretty cute.

Not anything near scary, more like cuddly.

I arrived at work early with bags of candy in tow for my patients. I was excited to see the reactions from my patients and the looks in their eyes. Most of my patients laughed as I entered the nursing home that day and truly enjoyed seeing their nurse in costume.

However, one of my mental illness patients found no humor in the situation at all. She was terrified of dogs and every time I would get near her, she would get upset.

As I would walk by she would yell "skedaddle. Git dog. Shoo."

Or other things like that.

It ended up becoming such a problem that I asked the other nurse on duty to assume her care for the day. She agreed, with a laugh. I thought this had solved all problems. Directly after lunch, I noticed this patient pacing back and forth talking on the resident's phone.

I could hear her saying, "yes, out in the open. Loose, yes. I know it's a public place... Has no business here.. Yes, running around all over the place."

I figured she was telling a family member about my costume and really didn't think too much about it. Heck, you can't please everyone and I didn't have time to go home and change. Within 15 minutes we had a visit from a man in uniform.

No, not the police...

Yes, the dog catcher.

He said, "I've had a report of a rather large dalmation running loose, have you seen one?"

The other nurse and I burst out laughing. We were laughing so hard and we just couldn't stop and every time we looked at him with his blank, dumbfounded stare we would start right back up. Finally, I sat down to try and catch my breath and I looked up at him.

He said, "Ohhhh... You're the dalmation?"

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NurseAlwaysNForever

About NurseAlwaysNForever

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That's a cute story. My daughter's preschool trick or treated at the nursing home- I think it was a very good experience for the children and the residents. I had primed my daughter on what the people she met would probably look like, etc., so she wouldn't be scared in an unfamiliar situation.

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Specializes in geriatric,mental health.

That is such a funny story! I will have to share that with others! Thanks!:yeah:

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Specializes in Rehab, Med Surg, Home Care.

Talk about literally working like a dog!

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Thanks for the laugh. When I was about three, I wanted to be a dalmatian when I grew up. You beat me to it. I think I must have seen somebody dressed up as sparky the fire dog and just figured I could be a dalmatian if I wanted to.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

when my son was little he expressed the desire to become a fire TRUCK when he grew up, not a fireman. Since he did not evolve into a noisy truck he just became a computer programmer instead.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

another funny - my hospital does "trunk or treat" at Halloween. Staff members decorate cars and we make a BIG circle in the parking lot then hand out treats from our trunks. Last year a boy about 3 was in a skeleton costume, but was afraid of everything going on, so his grandmother told me he was not a skeleton, but an "x-ray". I thought that was cute.

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Specializes in Sm Bus Mgmt, Operations, Planning, HR, Coaching.

In college, I worked the busy lunch shift at a local cafe and on Halloween we were asked to dress up.  I was riding my bike to work dressed in my costume.  A patrol officer decided to pull me over with his red lights blaring for not stopping completely at a stop sign.  I did slow way down to a "bicycle-stop" and looked both ways, but apparently that was not good enough. I bet he got a good laugh out of pulling over a young college girl on a bike dressed as a "Court Jester", wearing pointed red shoes, red tights, silly pointed hat with bells etc.  Yeah I felt like a fool.

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