Before we get too far away from Halloween, we wanted to share this guest post submitted by our Dallas-area Customer, Kristen Garrison.

Hello Southwest! My name is Kristen Garrison, and the dog in the costume is the soon-to-be two-year-old Boston Terrier, Kolby, whom I share with my boyfriend of six years, Kyle Neukom.  Kyle and I love  traveling, but Kyle has this Rainman-like knowledge and love of all things airplanes and all things Southwest. He also wants to be a Pilot.

In February, we took a trip to Washington, D.C. and had a layover in St. Louis en route to and from the Baltimore/Washington Airport. On the way home, during that layover, Kyle and I peeked into the cockpit and struck up a conversation with the Pilots about flight school and being a Pilot. Much to our surprise, they invited Kyle inside to sit in the seat and started showing him everything. Kyle even got to push the “ding” button. I can safely say that that is one of his favorite moments in his life.

On that trip home to Dallas, we were talking about how much we missed Kolby. Scrolling through the pictures in my camera, I came across a few of him in is Halloween costume – an uninspired, store bought alligator/dragon/dinosaur looking thing. I asked what we should do for the next Halloween (yes, a full eight months early).  Kyle, still in awe of sitting in the cockpit, said he wanted to be a Pilot, which prompted the idea of a “family” theme – he’d be the Pilot, I’d be the Flight Attendant, and Kolby would be the airplane.

It was honestly something that we didn’t even think of again until Easter. Sure the idea sounded cute, but Halloween was so far away.  I wasn’t sure if I could actually do it. Then, thanks to the Dallas Pet Parade we saw a picture of a bull dog dressed up as a SWA “Classic” airplane, and I knew that I could do a better job.

Kolby goes to daycare, and when his daycare announced that they would have a pet Halloween costume contest, I knew that we had to enter him as an airplane. The contest was for those who attended any one of the three Pappy’s Pet Lodge Doggy Daycare and Grooming facilities in Plano and Richardson. Out of the 40 plus dogs in the contest, Kolby won first place, and if I can say so myself, the competition wasn’t even close. We are also hoping to enter him in the 2009 PetSmart Howl-o-ween Pet Costume Contest. 

I hope you all LUV his costume as much as we LUV Southwest.