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Naughty or Nice…

It’s that time of year again friends! Santa Paws will be harnessing his reindeer soon and flying around the world to deliver treats and toys and other fun things to all of my four-legged buddies and me! The following is a list of ten things to remember during this holiday season if you would like to maximize what Santa Paws leaves for you on Christmas morning!

1)     During the month of December especially, eliminate or at the very least, limit your counter surfing. Remember, Santa Paws can see you at all times and as much as that Christmas ham looks like it was prepared just for you, it was most likely not. I’m really not sure how the Santa Paws can see you, but Mom says he can and I trust this information to be true, I do not want to end up with just brown crunchies in my stocking.

2)     Under no circumstances should you chase deer. Any kind of deer, while they are fun to chase, you never know, you could be chasing Santa Paws’ reindeer. This of course will result in only brown crunchies in your stocking. (Yes, Fenton, this means you too!)

3)     Take it easy when alerting mom or dad that there is a stranger in the house. Make double sure that the person is indeed a stranger and not Santa Paws. Santa Paws will not deliver special treats and toys if you are awake. It is therefore advisable that you at least pretend you are in a deep sleep while Santa Paws fills your stocking.

4)     Wrapping paper was not meant to be torn into little pieces. While this may seem like a fabulous Christmas Day activity, mom and dad don’t like this and Santa Paws will remember this for next year.

5)     The Christmas tree is not meant for you. This Christmas accessory looks and smells as if it were purchased with you in mind as it is essentially bringing all of your outdoor needs inside. Mom and dad will not appreciate chewing of branches and drinking from the water bowl underneath and most certainly will not be pleased if it is used as an indoor bathroom. My best advise is to look at the pretty lights and sniff its awesome smells but do not touch it!

6)     Most likely your family will have guests that stay during the holidays. With these guests it is a distinct possibility that you may have four-legged guests as well. If these guests are feline in nature, you should avoid chasing them. As much as they tease you, chasing them will result in, at best, a very light stocking from Santa Paws and at worst, a very sore nose.

7)     Lots of times little people receive gifts from Santa Paws that look very much like your toys. Make especially sure to treat these stuffed toys with care, or better yet steer clear of any toy that a little person has been seen playing with. I know from experience that these little people do not share well. They do not like to play with the stuffed toys after they are all wet and they make the most HORRIBLE, ear piercing, screeching noises when you pull all of the stuffing out. Trust me, as much as you will not like the deafening screams, the big people like these less, and you guessed it! – Neither does Santa Paws.

8)     The dishwasher, an amazing yet perilous way to sample lots of different people foods, should be avoided all the time but especially during the holiday season. Just ask my Uncle Owen, sometimes when sampling these tasty treats your collar can become stuck on the pokey things that prop the dishes up for optimal sampling, then when you back away from the dishwasher the tray and all of the dishes follow you. Normally, one would think that this would be a great way to save the dishes for later but it’s SCARY! The dishes come flying out and crash on the floor and the faster you run away the scarier it is! When you finally are able to shake free of the scary crashing tray, mom and dad are not happy at all. It is a huge mess and you can’t even help clean up because of all the broken pieces that could cut your tongue. It’s bad… stay out of the dishwasher.

9)     This time of year, with all the snow on the ground, guests will arrive with nice shoes but will lots of times take them off because generally humans don’t like to have wet feet. I don’t understand this at all since I love being wet and snowy but they don’t. And while these shoes smell wonderful since the leather is softened from the melting snow, under no circumstances should you try tasting these delicacies, the resulting scolding and only brown crunchies in the stocking just isn’t worth it.

10)   More on little people. Little people are the best. They love to play toys and rarely get bored with games that big people tire of quickly. But you should be mindful of how rough you play with them. I generally prefer to drop the toy at their feet and keep looking at them expectantly until the pick it up and throw it. Little people are quick to pick this game up, big people are not so smart and take training, but I digress. Although little people are very smart and love to play, they need to be handled with care, you should avoid jumping on them, knocking them over or licking their faces. This does two things, it makes the little person like you more therefore wanting to play toys longer and it prevents the little person from making the horrible screeching noises we covered earlier.

Make sure to enjoy your Holiday and I hope Santa Paws brings you everything you wrote on your list. If you have further questions on Holiday etiquette, please feel free to write in – I’ll be happy to try to advise you how to maximize what Santa Paws will leave on Christmas Day!

Food For the Refined Palate

So, I’m a picky eater. I don’t love to eat, unless of course, I’m stealing from Uncle Owen or one of my other dog friends. When breakfast or dinner is served in the morning I usually go sniff at it for a minute just to make sure Mom actually remembered to put it in my bowl and then wander back to my spot under the coffee table. Unless, of course, she puts chicken or cheese or some other yummy thing on top then I scarf that down and leave most of the uninteresting brown crunchy pieces for later, if and only if I’m starving to death. Which most times I’m not, so Mom comes home from work and throws the now bloated smushy brown things (those are even more disgusting) in the garbage and we start the process over again. This all gets even worse when I go to Grammy’s house when Mom goes away. You see Grammy actually MAKES Owen his food. From Scratch! When I go to Grammy’s I get to eat just a little of the brown crunchy things mixed in with whatever Grammy has cooked that day. Sometimes its broccoli and carrots and fish, sometimes its buffalo and asparagus and brown rice, sometimes turkey and green beans and potatoes – I LOVE it! Grammy told Mom she had to start doing this for me so I would eat my food. But Mom has resisted, mostly because she is very busy and doesn’t have time to make me a separate dinner from hers every night. I tried to get her to just eat the same thing as me but sadly she didn’t like the idea.

Well, the other day while I was in visiting the girls at my favorite store, Four Your Paws Only, Mom finally came around! That night for dinner when I got home she opened a can, it had the most amazing smell, I immediately stood on my hind legs to see what she was cooking. To my surprise, she wasn’t cooking at all!  It was a new type of yummy food she found called Merrick Working Dog Stew she was going to mix in with my brown crunchies. It was so yummy she hardly had it on the floor before I had scarfed it all up! Since then we have had Grammy’s Pot Pie (which surprisingly isn’t MY Grammy’s) and Honolulu Luau I am proud to report both are equally as yummy as the Working Dog Stew! So if your pup is a picky eater I highly recommend picking some up at your favorite local dog store to spice up their meals. Thank you Merrick for making my dining experience much more enjoyable – after all we are ‘foodies’ too!