Dogs and Santa....

[Jewel]

I am so embarrassed... :o DH and I took the pups to Petsmart yesterday to have their photo taken with Santa. Actually Riley, our little terrier/poodle mutt, was being groomed, so when we went to pick him up, we just brought Sasha, our Siberian Husky, with us. Riley is a very social dog. Anyone with a lap and a hand can become his friend with very little trouble. Basically, he's an Attention ***** :rolleyes: Sasha, on the other hand, was the one we adopted in April, and had a bit of trouble getting her to trust us. She's very social and fearless with us most of the time now, but we have had very little experience with her in public. Huskies are already very vocal, yowling and grumbling at us when things aren't to her satisfaction, or just generally 'talking' to us when they are! She's rarely quiet for long.

After picking up Riley in the groomer's salon and fawning all over him and his bow for a few moments (why do they do that to dogs?? :confused: ) we went to get in line to get our doggies photo taken with Santa. DH had Riley, who was a perfect gentleman, just straining at the end of his leash trying to do the Butt Sniff Dance with a few other dogs in line, but I had Sasha who sat there and whimpered...and whined...and cried. She wasn't in pain, she wasn't just bored (I don't think! :confused: ), and she wasn't angry. She just sat there and whined..loudly. I'd squat down and talk to her and pet her and everything would be fine for about 36 seconds. Then whimper, whine, cry and pout. The other mothers kept turning around and looking at me! :eek: We watched all of these cute dogs hop up onto the ledge next to Santa and smile pretty for the camera when the owners stood behind the photographer snapping their fingers and calling the pooch's name. This doesn't look that hard! :)

Soon it was our turn with Santa. DH took Riley over to Santa's left side and he hopped right up and tried to crawl onto Santa's 'bowl full of jelly' for a snuggle. No matter how I tried to entice Sasha onto the little bench next to Santa, she was having none of it. She laid down on the floor, and looked up at me...then started whimpering again. I had to pick her up and plop her down next to Santa. He tried to puuuuulll her over to his side and make her feel welcome. No amount of Ho-Ho-Ho'ing could get her to relax. Her ears stuck straight out on the sides of her head so she looked like Yoda. :rolleyes: She's turning away from the Jolly One and trying to get away. Meanwhile, Santa is having a hard time getting the Attention-Seeker off of his abundant lap and on to the bench at his side. DH and I are each standing behind the photographer excitedly trying to call to our own respective doggies to get them to look up and say "Milkbone". Naturally, it doesn't work. Photo is snapped and the dogs leap off the bench.

So the photographer hands us our photo and we walk away, each trying to look closely at it while being pulled by a leash. When we finally get the dogs loaded into the car and get a chance to look at this precious once-in-a-lifetime shot, this is what we see: Riley is trying to crawl back onto Santa's lap so he is in mid-crawl. Sasha has a total look of terror on her face. Both ears are flat and sticking straight out to the sides. Her legs are rigid, and she is being pulled against Santa's side. Both of our dogs have a mean case of red-eye. Santa looks like he's really looking forward to the Tequila Break.

We looked into the backseat of my car at our dogs. Both were sitting up perfectly, Riley with his little underbite, his bow around his neck and tail wagging at me, and Sasha sitting perfectly upright, ears pointed straight up, a look of total contentment on her face, and completely silent. A perfect Kodak moment, with no Santa in sight. :rolleyes: Why do we do this to ourselves??

[aggie94]

LOL, Jewel! That is precisely why DH says we can't take our dogs to Petsmart for pictures with Santa.

Oh, and you might appreciate this story. The day after Thanksgiving, DH & I are both comfortably curled up on the couches watching football. At a little after noon, we hear a scratch at the front door. Turns out, it's our next-door neighbor's brand-new, can't-be-more-than-8-weeks-old Husky puppy sitting on our doorstep. She had apparently dug her way out of the backyard and the neighbors weren't home, so we put a note on their door and took her back home with us. They were only gone another two hours, but it felt like 2 days! We were so exhausted from "supervising" her that we had to take a nap after she left! Talk about an energetic, fearless puppy. And SO cute!

[beacooker]

You know what they say about animals being really good judges of character. Sasha is probably wondering why on earth her parents would try to make her sit on the lap of such a bad man!

[Jewel]

Originally posted by aggie94
We were so exhausted from "supervising" her that we had to take a nap after she left! Talk about an energetic, fearless puppy. And SO cute!

I hear you Eva! :D We got Sasha at 1-1/2 yrs old, but she really does still look like a puppy. She only weighs 45 lbs, and she looks like she hasn't grown into her ears! I'm constantly asked when she's going to be old enough to breed! :rolleyes: She's 2 years old! We were cautioned about the breed and how they LOVE to run, and how you have to make sure that if you put a fence around a Husky you must dig the posts at least 2 feet into the ground because they have been known to DIG UNDER a fence up to that deep! It's not that they don't love their owners or their home, they're just so social and love to run so much, they're looking for new ground and new friends!! :eek: I'm so glad she scratched at your door! DH accidentally let Sasha get away a few months ago, and she turned into a gazelle...she was halfway down the block within 32 seconds, and DH was frantically chasing her, huffing and puffing all the way! :p

[mandarin2j]

Jewel-

The same thing happened with Kirby at "Santa Paws" a few weeks ago. We just got the photos back last week of this big, kinda scary-looking German shepherd looking absolutely terrified of Santa. He's weird about unfamiliar men in general, so the suit made it even worse for him. Kirby pretty much loves all women, familiar or not. He totally played up to the women who were helping out with the fundraiser, but Santa had to drag him over by his leash. No amount of coaxing by me would convince Kirby to voluntarily get near Santa!

Kinda makes you wonder what people had to do to 'em before we got 'em to make them so shy of different kinds of strangers. We've certainly worked on socializing him at the park, but I don't think he'll ever get over being afraid of strange men. I'm glad Kirby is with us now, and I'm sure he feels likewise. You, your DH, and your Sasha are very fortunate to have found each other as well!

-Amanda

[BlueMoose]

My parents have a picture of one of their dogs that looks exactly like that....ears down, legs rigid, and being held next to Santa.

Of course, this is what my DD would look like, too if I could even convince her to sit on Santa's lap.:rolleyes:

[AndreaU]

Tupper did the same thing. She is the friendliest, happiest dog in the world, but when it came to having her picture taken with "Santa Paws," she freaked. I had never seen her so timid. She was so reluctant to get anywhere near him, much less in his lap! The picture is hysterical- Tupper's front paws on Santa Paws' lap, her ears pulled back, and this look like "Mommy, what are you doing to me? What the h--- IS this thing anyway???" Since that day 3 years ago, we have yet to take her back. I wouldn't even consider taking Colby- he is very hesitant around people (even DH & I). He was abused as a pup, so even the slightest move sets him off and he runs & hides.

[MrsReber]

Well, little Lindsey (bichon frise) is looking scared in her picture, too! When she was a puppy, she'd go to anyone, but as she got older, she developed this thing about being picked up by anyone except me. I am allowed. She will bite other people. When I take her to be groomed, I have to leave the store before they can even touch her. It's really just a defensive thing. She thinks she's protecting me from the bad evil groomers or the evil vet man. she's fine when I'm not around. Anyway, she was not thrilled with Santa. Her ears are really down as far as they can go and she looked quite worried. I don't think she minded the Easter Bunny half as much (yes, I have that picture, too). I stopped taking her after I met DH. He thought I was insane. Not that he doesn't love his dog, he just didn't understand. Then again, Lindsey was not crazy about the whole ordeal so maybe it's better that we don't risk her biting Santa or the Easter Bunny in order to protect me from those evil creatures :rolleyes:

[beejayw1]

Originally posted by Jewel
We looked into the backseat of my car at our dogs. Both were sitting up perfectly, Riley with his little underbite, his bow around his neck and tail wagging at me, and Sasha sitting perfectly upright, ears pointed straight up, a look of total contentment on her face, and completely silent. A perfect Kodak moment, with no Santa in sight. :rolleyes: Why do we do this to ourselves??

OMG, I'm laughing so hard! (And boy, do I need a laugh today!) Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Hey, at least they didn't piddle on Santa's boots!

[lindrusso]

Jewel -

Cute story. I had to giggle even more because I remember you asking how those of us with kids do it (it was on a thread where some moms were talking about their kids less-than-wonderful behavior in public or some such thing).

Sounds like you already know! ;)

[slknight]

This past weekend I started decorating the house for Christmas. I put a small stuffed santa on one of the stereo speakers, and Chessie (half Husky, half Basenji), started going nuts and growling at it. I had to let her sniff it and check it out, and then I moved it to the top of the t.v. cabinet, so it wouldn't be at nose level. So I guess I won't be taking her to see Santa anytime soon. She'd probably freak!

Besides, there's not Petsmart in the state of Maine (although I think Petco has pictures with Santa too).

[Jewel]

Originally posted by lindrusso
Jewel -

Cute story. I had to giggle even more because I remember you asking how those of us with kids do it (it was on a thread where some moms were talking about their kids less-than-wonderful behavior in public or some such thing).

Sounds like you already know! ;)

I think some would call this "payback"! :rolleyes:

There is another Santa Paws thing going on at a mall about 12 miles down the road tonight, and I'm going to try to sweet-talk DH into us taking the pups down after dinner. Maybe they'll be better? The PetSmart people used a Polaroid, and the photo looks so cheesy! Maybe the REAL Santa uses a 35mm!! :D Maybe we can try this again!

[MrsReber]

Good luck Jewel! When I took Lindsey to see Santa, I actually had my own camera along. I know what you mean about the cheesy polaroid pictures. The couple I took with my camera came out nicer. I don't know how the pestmart folks felt about that, but they still got their "donation" when we bought the cheesy picture.

[Peggy C.]

and now I'm torn on taking him to see Santa or not. Generally speaking he's great with all strangers, and DH= has a beard, and is a little heavy like Santa, but doesn't dress in red from head to toe.

Here is another question for all you BBers with dogs. Did you put up a tree the first year you had them? I want to but DH= doesn't. He thinks Otis is too clumsy and will trash the tree. I say that is our responsibility to make sure he doesn't. In all fairness Otis is very clumsy, he ways 100lbs. but thinks he's a lap dog. Secretly I think this is DH='s way of skipping the tree. How did you handle it with new pups? Ps. Otis is JUST over a year old, but we did not have him last Christmas.

[MrsReber]

What? No tree? My advice would be to have a tree, but keep all tinsel and decorations as much out of his reach as possible! I have more problems with my cat batting ornaments and eating tinsel than my dogs. You could try to block off the area around the tree with a gate. Good luck! I hope you get your tree! You may be surprised and find that Otis doesn't even care about the tree!

[slknight]

I've got to second the advice about getting a tree. My dog seems to pretty much ignore it. I think you should get one and see how it goes. Otis may surprise you and leave it alone. Of course you might want to leave the really breakable ornaments off this year just in case something happens! Just my 2 cents.

[AndreaU]

Peggy- we got a tree for our first Christmas with our (first) dog. We brought it in & let her sniff around before we decorated it. Once decorated (with ornaments up a few branches from the bottom), she was fine with it--- EXCEPT for this one little fuzzy, wooly sheep ornament that she just HAD to have! We hide that one on top now. Now we have 2 dogs. Our second dog (that we got over a year ago) could care less about the tree.

I say go for it. If you're still worried, just be around whenever your dog is in the tree room.

[Peggy C.]

He was actually really good and really cute. We barely walked in the door and Otis had his nose buried in Santa's beard. We took about 4 pictures 2 of them turned out pretty cute. But the funniest part was that we missed our oportunity to get the pictures taken at Petsmart and the local APL, but then I remembered that the city I grew up in has a little house they put up every year and Santa sits evenings and weekends until Christmas and visits with kids. It is actually really nice, because it is only Santa no photographer so if you can't afford some outageous price for the picture there is no pressure.

Well anyways like I said it is really for the kids, but I thought I'll ask, all he can do is say no. So I pop my head in and say "Hey Santa do you mind taking a picture with my dog?" And Santa says "No I don't mind, as long as he doesn't p*ss on the floor!" Well I'm so taken aback, it takes me a second to recover. I say to him "well that's the holiday spirit" we both start laughing and he apologizes, and I told him no need to I understand. There weren't any kids around or it might have bothered me after I collected myself from laughing so hard. And actually he was really good with Otis!