A message from your pets, this holiday season,
Courtesy of Luna Yanek

This holiday season, while you run around like a chicken with your head cut off shopping and buying the perfect gifts and wrapping and writing holiday cards and baking sheets of Christmas cookies and drinking bowls of egg nog and feeding each other chocolate-covered-cherries under the mistletoe, might I remind you: we pets would like a holiday too?

We're not asking for a plasma TV or a PDA; a new scratching post or some new toys would be perfect. I would like a hanging scratching board to hang around the doorknob so that I may irritate my mom further when she is asleep. Please, no doggy sweaters or kitty collars; we do not consider those presents.

If you claim financial strife, changing our litter box more than usual (or walking us if we are a dog, or changing our cage if we are a bird...you get the drift. I speak mainly for and as a cat, but other animals desire attention and love too!), or playing with us, or brushing us for hours are all low-cost or free options. On the other hand, clipping our nails, bathing us, and affixing a red bow around our neck, or a faux-Santa costume (especially if your pet is a ferret) is not a cute option. If we wanted and liked those things, we wouldn't struggle so.

In addition, remember as you are carving that turkey, or stirring that pudding...we'd like some please! I know dairy does cause flatulence in me, but if you really love me, you'd serve me extra treats, cat's milk, and big heaping bowls of warm wet food. MMMMM!

So remember us this holiday time. As we roll around in the tinsel, chase the ornaments rolling around the floor, attack the wrapping paper, and provide other holiday entertainment.....

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!