The first year our beloved dog Nyla was part of the family she had no gifts. Family gathered around, tearing into gift wrap, oohing and aahing over presents. As the wrap and ribbon settled and the excitement quieted, we turned to see Nyla lying with her head nestled between her front paws. The only word for the sad eyed expression on her face was “forlorn.”
This is Chord above. He is a cheerful soul, though here he’s saying, “Come on, not this hat again!” You should see the expression on his face when we unwrap a toy for him at Christmas.
Do you have companion animals in your life? If so, do they get presents when your human family exchanges gifts?
You have inspired me to repost our Maggi with her Santa hat next Saturday for Camera Critters. Gifts for animals…you betcha! Each has a stocking hanging on the mantle with the rest of the family. Chica, the cockatiel and Sadie, the parrot get special treats; Maggie and Lexie, our grand-dog get pet-shop-bones. Fairly predictable. Your Chord looks like he wants his gift soon after posing with that silly hat again!!
Yes, we have always given all our pets (dogs & cats) gifts at Christmas (boxes of biscuits which are available for them on that day but then whisked up and put into the cabinet, some squeaky toys, a good rawhide chew). They have their own stockings also. When the birthday roll around this is repeated. Yes, they do love the act of opening gifts (sometimes helped by us) and they seem to sense Christmas in the air. I swear our current German Shepherd even hurries us Christmas morning to “get a move on!!”
Sounds silly, but Chord’s birthday is a week before Christmas. We sing “Happy Birthday” and give him a treat or two. He loves the attention. We could probably sing “Row, row, row your boat” and get the same response, but we all love the goofyness. In our experience animals give back what they get and respond to love with even more love.
Lucy (our rescued Welsh Corgi mix) will be getting some new toys… you know they make ‘stuffingless’ toys, but I always buy the stuffed ones, and she does the de-stuffing herself! I’ve seen a bumper sticker on the back of cars which says ‘Who rescued who,’ That fits our family with Lucy…
My dogs always had their own stockings with fragrant treats in them and a few toys under the tree too.They always knew that they had stuff for them waiting to be opened!
Oh, absolutely – half the fun of Christmas morning is getting the cats completely ‘nipped out and setting them loose in the middle of the discarded wrapping paper!
I volunteer at the local animal shelter and we recently did a photo shoot of the cats in holiday settings – putting a Santa hat on one of our cats was a challenge, but wouldn’t you know he went to a forever home on Friday, so I guess it worked!
I may not have the wording completely right, but there’s a quote I like: “Until one has loved an animal part of the soul remains unawakened.”
Ali, I’d say that “putting a Santa hat on one of our cats was a challenge” is an understatement! I’m glad it helped find a home.
Our pets are a huge part of our holidays and they all get gifts. When money is tight, they are taken care of before we are. At Christmas, we exchange gifts with both sets of parents for all of our canine kids and have fun watching them open the gifts.
I saw that bumper sticker that Madge mentioned and it went straight to my heart when I did, so true. I think I should get myself one.