What's all this about Santa Claus?

Ok, I'm confused.

Today mom took me to Petco (as you know, one of my favorite places) to have my picture taken with Santa Claus. Since I know nothing of this person or this holiday (yet!), I was just happy to be going into the store. We got there around 9:30 this morning, because Santa was supposed to be there at 9.

There was no Santa Claus. There was no photographer. Just a lot of angry humans with their doggies. Apparently, Santa had been out on a bender (I understand this to be that he drank too much firewater) and the photographer left in disgust. Somehow the Petco employees were able to convince the photographer to come back again in a little while, but he had to stop and buy a Santa Claus suit. So we all waited.

There was Elvis the miniature Schnauzer, Ripley the fox-like mutt & Tara the Rottweiler, Gunner the Doberman, Nico the terrier-mix and others... We managed to have some fun while the humans yelled at each other. Everyone was friendly, mom had conveniently grabbed a bag of Charlee Bear snacks so we were busy feeding everyone while the dogs all ran around and peed all over Petco.

Finally the photographer arrived with - what mom says - was a lousy backdrop and no Santa. He set up and then a very glum-looking Petco employee stomped past us with a folded Santa suit in his hands. Uh-oh. We waited a little while longer and then finally Santa was ready.

The first few pets went up to take their pictures with Santa - what a mess! Santa didn't have a chair and the backdrop was too short for him to stand up... The photographer really didn't know how to pose pets with Santa (read: how to bribe us to look cute for a second). When it was my turn, mom was busy making sure that I looked adorable and she even didn't yell at me when I bit the nasty Santa. Not hard, just a nip, because he was making my mom mad.

I think the picture that we chose was kind of nice - the photographer only took a few digital photos (now I've watched mom take pictures, and she's muuuuuuch better than this guy!) for us to choose from so mom picked one and then we went up to pay for it. Then we found out that it's going to be mailed to us! Mom was mad again because she wanted to put my cute face into everyone's Christmas cards.... ah well, sorry mom, the world will have to wait for my cuteness!

I'll post the picture when we finally get it. Right now I'm off with Dad to his friend's furniture store, Sweet Smiling Home. It's a really nice store, if you're looking for Indonesian or Asian furniture they have really great stuff (mom and dad got their bed there, that I'm not allowed to sleep on... yet). I get to see Sophie the Dachshund so that should be fun.

Love,
Bogart