Our Festive Pets: Christmas 2017 - They Earn Their Vet Bills

This year was a tough one for our aging cats. Jackson was diagnosed with cancer in the beginning of the year, and Boo with hyperthyroidism towards the end. Both endured very expensive and unpleasant inpatient experiences, but have recovered to good health afterwards. Therefore, we felt that torturing them for the annual Christmas photos would be okay. We're not sure they agreed, but one cannot argue with results - and we think this year's photos are as full of seasonal cheer as ever.

First of all, we must introduce the newest Beagle family member. Most cats arrive here feral but few stay that way. Meet Miss Friendly Cat, named because she is indeed very friendly... EXCEPT when one tries to dress her in holiday hats and outfits! We have now discovered that Miss Friendly Cat has her limits, and dressing up is past those. We managed to sneak these couple shots before she headed back to the barn.

After that, we moved on to the dogs. Crash doesn't like to be still for more than a second, and good old Rowdy never moves, so we had some interesting juxtapositions of blurry Crash with immobile Rowdy. The costume was a bit big for Crash, but he wears it so well! Technically, we're not sure if he's supposed to be a belllhop or a drummer boy, so use your imagination:

It doesn't take much to bore these dogs!

Moving inside, we tried to revisit the magic of last year's Cheek photoshoot, but he just wasn't in the mood this year. It's hard to position hats properly when one is missing an ear!

And Cheek is VERY squirmy, so as soon as we got his paws through the sleeves, they were back out the neck hole.

We did get one lovely closeup of the little darling:

Clearly it was time to move on to the veterans of Christmas glamour shots.

As always, Boo is our star. He was born to model and he is always good for the perfect money shot. Here are a few highlights, including his debut in multi-cultural attire. Matching his eyes, Boo rocks the Hannukah sweater, right?

But then, Boo rocks all holiday attire. Show them how it's done, Boo!!

We planned to really knock some socks off with the Santa/presents costume for Jackson this year. Jackson responded by trying to knock some sense into us. He may not look happy, but we think you'll enjoy these photos!

After a few treats for Jackson and a few band-aids for us, we moved on to another fake-hands outfit. If you can look at these photos and not laugh, we're not sure we want to know you!