Dear Santa,

It’s been a tough year for all of us animals at the Kingston Humane Society. We keep seeing our people rushing around, trying to make sure that we’re all happy and healthy but they never seem to have enough time. Sometimes we feel guilty about that. We bark or meow or scratch at our cages but we don’t mean to upset anybody. We’re really just worried about our people. A while ago we heard them talking about something called a “postal strike”. They seemed really concerned about it. A bunch of the dogs got together to talk about what they could do. Their first idea - to chase mail carriers until they agreed to stop this strike thing - seemed like a win-win situation. After all, you know how much dogs love chasing mail carriers. Fortunately, one of the cats pointed out that chasing humans might not be the best behaviour if the ultimate goal is to get adopted so we scrapped that idea. After a little more discussion and a few snacks, we made a group decision to be on our best behaviour. We keep hearing that song that says you’re making a list and checking it twice and that you’re gonna find out who’s naughty and who’s nice. Rainer seems really worried about being stereotyped as naughty. He says Dobermans get a bad rap. Anyway, being good seemed to work because we heard all of our people talking about how the strike is over now and something called “donations” have started to arrive again. Thanks for the early Christmas present Santa. It made our people happy. Honestly, they’re the ones that should be at the top of your nice list. They are the best. Don’t get us wrong, we all want to find our forever homes and if you could fit forever homes onto your sleigh, that would be awesome, but we’re happy to stay here with our people for now. They love us a lot and we love them right back. They deserve whatever you are able to bring them.

Once you’ve taken care of our people, then I guess we’d all like to find the right place to live. Some of us need very specific homes. Gregory the boxer cross needs a family that will be patient with him; he’s only got three legs and one eye but he’s sweet and protective of the people he loves. BBQ the grey tabby needs someone who’s willing to slowly introduce him to life with people; he’s never had that before. Tornado the kitten just needs someone willing to keep her safe and happy. And those are only some of the animals in our building. A whole bunch of our other friends are living with foster volunteers. Fosters are just like our people, loving and kind and so helpful, but the animals in foster care need forever homes too.

Life in the shelter is okay but it’s not the best. It’s an old building that’s a bit cold in the winter and bit hot in the summer. It’s also tricky living with so many other animals. We’re packed in here pretty tightly. Some of us are scared, some of us are angry and some of us are sick. The sick ones make our people the saddest. Sometimes they cry; especially when they do everything they can and they still can’t save one of us. When that happens, we nudge them or rub up against them to try to make them happy again. It can take a while, but eventually if we try hard enough, we can get them to smile.

Those smiles are almost as good as a treat.

Thanks for listening Santa. Say hi to your reindeer from all of us and if the cookies look like we nibbled on them, we apologize in advance. It’s really hard to say no to cookies.

Merry Christmas from all of us.

Signed – the animals of the Kingston Humane Society.