The Truth About Cats and Dogs... and other critters

Those oh-so-adorable (to me anyway) Chihuahuas up above are my little fur babies, Tootsie and Brock. Brock, my little male, is the smallest at just under 5lbs, and Tootsie is a voluptuous 8lbs. (Brock likes a woman with a little meat on her bones. ;-)

Brock is ailing. He gets medicine in his eyes 4x a day, but he's fast going blind anyway. And thanks to congestive heart failure, he gets pills 3x a day. For the most part he's comfortable, as long as he's on my lap and there isn't too much confusion.

Christmas counts as confusion.

He gets plenty grouchy with all the fanfare of this very special holiday. So what do my husband and I do? We baby him even more. He has a heating pad in his bed to help keep him warm at night, and he gets chopped chicken from the deli to eat, and he gets rubbed and stroked and cradled by everyone that he'll allow to touch him. LOL. Tootsie's way of dealing with the holidays is to hide. A lot. She loves Brock and she loves me - everyone else is suspect.

And then we have the 3 cats who enjoy hiding under the tree and taking down decorations to better examine them. Mixed with holly and garland and glass beads is lots and lots of cat fur. I swear it multiplies on its own. No amount of dusting and vacuuming will remove it all.
Visitors beware - you WILL leave with cat fur.

But I love the animals, so what the heck? I got to thinking about everyone else and their pets, too. Did you know that 56 percent of Americans sing holiday carols to their pets? And 2 out of 5 pet owners include a picture of their furry best friends in the holiday cards they send?
We are a nation of animal lovers! Yay!

What follows are some fun pet stories from authors that I hope you'll enjoy. And after you're done reading, let me know what YOUR pet is up to during the Holiday fun!

Holly Winters

I have two cats and their philosophy is “what goes up must come down.” This includes my Christmas tree, any ornaments I put on it and anything I might try to put in the window, whether lights or decorations. The first year I had the two of them, my poor artificial tree got knocked over so many times that by Christmas Day it was nearly flattened on one side and the garland was lopsided. The ornaments…OMG…they knock them off and bat them around on the floor. I finally found unbreakable ornaments and that is what I use now. This year, I put up a fiber optic tree on Thanksgiving Day. Immediately, Holly, my younger cat, started chewing on the branches despite my telling her to not do so. I chased her away, but then I had to leave to head to my brother’s for dinner. When I came home that evening, I found my tree knocked over and on the floor. Oddly, since then, neither cat has touched it. But every time I put up something new for decoration, they have to inspect it and see if it’s something that needs to come down. LOL


D. McEntire

My husband, two children and I decided to try a new place to cut down a Christmas tree. After we told the man who greeted us we wanted to hunt for a tree, he told us to wait there. After disappearing into the barn, he returned with a llama. We looked at each other with raised eyebrows, wondering what we were supposed to do with the animal besides jump out of the way when it decided to hock a luggy. The man told us to go on out, cut down a tree, attach it to the llama's harness and he'll know what to do. We found our tree and did as instructed. Sure enough, once the tree was attached, the llama turned and headed straight for the barn. Though we didn't have a camera with us that day, that was one holiday memory we are sure never to forget.


Susan Andersen

Lori, this didn't happen to one of my cat's but to one of my friend Martha's.
She looked over and saw an inch of flat red ribbon sticking out of her kitty's mouth.
So she pulled it out before the cat could choke on it.
Or that was the plan. But like one of those multicolored magician's scarves, she pulled it out
and pulled it out
and pulled it out.
The cat had managed to unravel an entire ribbon wrapped ornament and Martha retrieved about 13 inches of the ribbon.
It was probably lucky it didn't kill the cat.
Happily my cats aren't as adventurous of the ornaments. But they like to sleep under the tree.


Dianne Castell

Cats and Christmas are a bad mix. Oh, I know you see the pics of the sweet cat sleeping by the hearth with the Christmas tree in the background...except those aren’t my cats.
Pixel and Spooky (what else would you name a cat you find on Halloween in the Kroger parking lot) are the anti-Christmas cats. They eat the tinsel then puke it up on the white rug.
And whereas Lori’s cats sleep peacefully under the Christmas tree, Pixel and Spooky have deemed it the Christmas litter box. That smell in the air is NOT pine!
I put little stuffed birds on a Poinsettia and the daring-duo attacked leaving a war zone of feathers, red leaves and dirt. My first Christmas tree died and I think it was out of fear or that the cats peed in the tree stand.
Of course both little darlings are sleeping next to my computer as I type this and are looking oh so angelic and sweet. Coal or Fancy Feast? Tough decision.


Donna MacMeans

Many, many years ago, when my husband and I couldn't afford ornaments to fully decorate the tree, I decided to bake gingerbread boys and girls, painstakingly decorate them, then run a red ribbon through holes made with a straw to hang on the tree.
I must have made about one hundred cookies.
The house smelled wonderful, the tree smelled fabulous. My husband and I and our Irish setter, Rusty Scrupper, gathered around the tree in awe of what our labor produced.
I seem to recall comments that we should do this every year. The next morning we got up, went into the living room, and noted that from the waistline down, the tree was bare. All that remained were the red ribbon hangers.
Rusty slept contently beneath.
In hindsight, we should have known that the temptation was too great to resist, but what can I say? We were dumb (smile). But I'll never forget the sight of that half-dressed tree.


Jules Bennet

Molly is my Beagle/St. Bernard mix that we rescued from the pound 9 years ago.

I cannot count how many Christmas presents this dog has "done her business on." The dog NEVER uses the bathroom in the house, except on Christmas presents.
And, the kicker is she only does it on my husband's gifts!

Here's a picture of Molly!

Stella Cameron

We have one very shy cat, Mango, who is now really old. She is also so shy it almost hurts. After friends brought their dog over when they visited us for an evening we couldn't find Mango and we were so frightened. We couldn't find her the next day either and started calling shelters although she has always been an indoor cat.

That afternoon, I assume when hunger became too much to bear, weak cries came from the direction of the tree. Mango had hidden, very carefully, inside a gift bag with the gift, a cashmere sweater. It was only later that I got upset about the condition of the sweater.

Kate Douglas

All I can offer is this little photo that we keep of Rufus—when he’s acting up I remind him I still have the negatives...

We haven’t put up a tree for years (allergies), and that’s generally the place where critters get into trouble, and because of Doug’s allergies, we don’t have cats...’nuff said! Pretty boring, critter-wise, around here!

(But hey, that's a mighty cute photo of Rufus!)

So... what's YOUR story!? If you have a pet that enjoys the holidays, or in some way causes havoc, please share it with us.

Merry Christmas everyone!
I hope this Holiday Season finds you healthy, happy, warm, filled with peace and surrounded by good friends and family.

LORI
aka
L.L. FOSTER

http://www.lorifoster.com/