Pets Get In Picture As Santa Gets Claws

By afternoon, almost 200 animals had stopped by Evergreen Pet Shop for snaps with Santa.

But no cats.

Apparently, Feliz Navidad just isn’t for felines.

Maybe it was just that Saturday brought the year’s first big snow. That didn’t seem to slow the Rottweilers, though. “Blizzard or no blizzard, animals still come to see Santa,” Jennifer Kline said from behind a fake beard.

The county Animal Control officer had changed gender and jobs for the day to raise money for the shelter. On Friday and Saturday, she posed with pets for $6. Evergreen donated bags of pet goodies for the pooches. For the occasional human pup, she had candy canes, too. Kline will do it again this weekend.

Sometimes she gets wisecracks. On Friday, a woman told her “Santa with a pony tail? This really is the ‘90s.”

Nay-sayers, listen up. Kline is the Santa of the animal kingdom. This is the fourth year she’s done it.

“The first year I was pregnant with my son, and I had the perfect belly for it,” she joked.

Warm-blooded or cold, she’ll pose with it. Once, “we had a huge iguana,” she remembered. “It had claws as long as my finger, and I could just feel it digging in.” That reptile didn’t get any veggies in its stocking.

Another time, someone brought in a dog deemed dangerous by the city. Still, she posed for the picture - alongside its owner, who restrained the muzzled Cujo.

Some are repeat customers. A ferret and an English bull mastiff get their mugs taken with her annually.

Santa didn’t have too much time for reminiscing, though. Dusty the Great Dane was thrashing his way down the aisle toward her, in tow behind his owner. Diane Timoney, Animal Control office manager, tried to put a Santa hat on the big critter. The gray-and-black Marmaduke awkwardly flopped around to escape.

“No, he doesn’t bite,” owner Kim Johnson assured Santa and his helper. Timoney grabbed her camera, and Santa sat down. Timoney tried to get the huge dog to sit still. It took a bone treat to finally calm him down.

When a Great Dane cooperates, you can’t screw around. You have to act now. Nichelle Nerger’s parents own Evergreen, and she was helping out. The 13-year-old held up a squeak toy, giving it a quick squeeze.

Dusty looked up from his bone, the shutter clicked. Gotcha.

Now a line was forming. Terry Johnson had brought two little schnauzers, red and green holiday bandanas tied bandit-style beneath their peppery beards.

“They’re pretty intimidating,” Johnson quipped.

Santa, apparently, wanted to settle up with that iguana. “No exotic animals yet,” Kline said, lensless wire-frame specs bobbing on her nose.

Of course not. You guys are the pound, remember?

“We leave that at work,” Timoney assured. Endangered species, come on down.

The day nearly done, a rare beast appeared.

“Our first cat,” Santa said, smiling. Chuck Vensel and his 11-year-old son, Steve, had put a green wreath and red bow around the kitty’s neck.

Santa picked up the pet, but not without a warning.

“Oreo has claws,” Steve said.

“Thanks.”

Everything went OK, though. No blood.

Vensel said he found the cat and its three sibling in a window well one day. His wife is allergic to cats, but let him keep Oreo anyway.

“She’s a mild kitty, except when she’s around dogs,” he said. “We consider her a gift.”

His son felt around in the the pet gift bag.

“Dad, look,” Steve said, triumphantly pulling out something that looked like a gift certificate. “$10 off rabies shots.”

Merry Christmas, Oreo.

, DataTimes MEMO: Valley Snapshots is a regular Valley Voice feature that visits gatherings in the Valley. If you know of a good subject for this column, please call reporter Ward Sanderson at 927-2154.