Lucy Meets Santa

I love getting my picture taken with Santa and thought it would be even more fun taking Lucy to meet Santa. Conveniently, PetSmart had a photo station set up and for only $10 we could our picture with him! Simple enough, right? WRONG. I forgot that Lucy has been on "house confinement" for the last 8 weeks recovering from her knee surgery. What does that mean? Well, for the first 2-3 weeks she was slow moving, but after that she started to go stir crazy...wondering why she wasn't getting her daily walks or why she wasn't allowed to run around the backyard or why she couldn't play with her boyfriend from across the street, Roscoe. We figured since she was healing nicely that we could take Lucy, on a leash of course, to PetSmart for the big Santa photo-op. Well, Lucy started getting excited when she saw her leash...she continued to get even more excited when she realized she was going for a car ride (one of her favorite things). So by the time we pulled up in the PetSmart parking lot, Lucy was fired up and ready to play. While Lucy is a well-behaved dog in our book, she definitely could learn how to walk on a leash without pulling. She is 90 lbs of pure muscle and if she isn't wearing her walking harness, good luck to you. I don't know what we were thinking about not using her harness. So as Lucy approached PetSmart, which is filled with all sorts of dog smells and since pets are allowed in the store on a leash, she started to get even more excited. Luckily there wasn't a line for a picture with Santa, so we went right up. Bless Santa's heart...he was a dog lover, so he was very patient while we tried to get her to sit. Lucy was so worked up and excited that she could hardly sit still....very much a wiggleworm. If you have met Lucy you know what we mean. She greets any and all people with not just a tailwag, but a bootie wag. That is what we call it...it's when her whole but and hips shake from side to side and her tail is going crazy (we learned the hard way and no longer keep anything on the coffee table).

After 5-10 minutes of trying to bribe Lucy with treats, she finally sat down long enough for us to pose with Santa. It took both me AND Santa holding her back by her collar.

As Lucy would say, "Happy Howlidays" and "I woof you a Merry Christmas!"