Christmas tails

Well, it’s that time of year again where everyone who wants a certain or special gift writes a letter to Santa.

So, it came as a huge surprise to us at Thurston Pets Project when we received a certified letter from someone at Santa’s Workshop Inc. (SWI) at North Pole. With all the scams targeting the elderly these days, of which we are not but they do target the elderly, we did our due diligence and checked the return address and email link thru our scam checker app, which we had purchased from (redacted) and everything appeared to be legitimate. 

After several correspondences back and forth with an elf representative from SWI, we were finally put on a direct channel with the author of the original letter. You can imagine our shock when we found out that it was not from Santa, but from Mrs. Claus herself! 

The conversation started off cordially as she professed that both she and Nicholas were avid readers of The JOLT with their favorite column being Thurston Pets Project. Before we could even begin to discuss her purpose for writing a letter to us, she asked Trish how her dog, Thor, was doing as she had read in our column about his battle with diabetes. She was very concerned about him and offered Trish her support. 

She then went on to her letter where she was asking for our help with any suggestions on how to help with their reindeer who, along with their backup crew, had recently become finicky about what they were eating.

This, coupled with other problems, such as all of the other reindeer were laughing and calling Rudolph names along with refusing to let him play in any reindeer games, along with other non-reindeer problems, were all driving Santa crazy and driving up his blood pressure, which in turn worried Mrs. Claus, hence her letter, hoping that we could help. 

Let’s tackle the food dilemma first. An average reindeer can eat up to 18 pounds a day of food, so for a full year a nine-member team could eat up to, roughly, 59,130 pounds (or 29.5 tons).

Wild reindeer are ruminants, like cattle, and have a four-chambered stomach, which allows them to digest tough plant material. They will eat a diet of vegetation consisting during the summer of grasses, ferns, herbs and leaves along with the shoots from young trees before turning to their winter meal of reindeer moss (lichen), which is rich in calories providing quick energy, along with fungi buried beneath the snow.

This sustains them through the harsh cold winter where they can eat up to 11 pounds a day of the lichen alone. Reindeer metabolism slows down in the winter as they rely on their fat reserves built up during the summer months. (Note: All weight numbers are rough estimates as provided by SWI) 

As you can imagine, Santa’s reindeer are on a whole different level. Whereas the beautiful, wild reindeer could be compared with our everyday cars, then Santa’s elite team would be the Formula 1, complete with racing team and support crew.

And Santa’s reindeer, like the Blue Angels, train all year round in all types of weather conditions, practicing touch and go landings, alternate routes, and, like pit stops, quick Santa’s sleigh exchanges. (You really don’t think he can carry all the toys in just one bag, do you?) 

And just as an F1 racer takes a high-performance fuel mixture, so does Santa’s team which takes a healthy mixture of foods such as C.O.B. (corns, oats, barley), hay and plenty of fresh water. Mrs. Claus was concerned that while Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet and Cupid seemed content, it was Vixen, Donner (originally Donder/Dunder) and Blitzen (originally Blixem) who were complaining about their high energy Christmas diet, which started right after Halloween.

At first, we were a little perplexed as our suggestion was to include carrots, celery and apples along with replacing the daily C.O.B. with either sweet C.O.B. (or Wet as it sometimes referred to), which includes molasses, along with a sprinkling of magical lichen for added flying power.

Mrs. Claus was sure that is what her husband had done already as he kept the book she had bought him for Christmas a couple of years ago of Thurston Pets Project, “How to take care of your Flying Reindeer” in his den and was always reading it while listening to Tito Puente, again, as we had suggested. 

After getting the two procurement elfs, Dave 1 & Dave 2, on the line we quickly isolated the problem as, in an effort to cut back on expenses, instead of using fresh apples from “Harriet & John’s U-Pick Orchards,” they had gone to brand X. Within a day of correcting the problem, all the reindeer were happy again. 

Moving onto another problem, which was the back-up team. Just as with an all wheel drive vehicle, if one tire fails you usually have to replace them all, so it goes with flying reindeer. It’s “eight tiny reindeer,” not “seven and whoever is on call this week.”

And while the concept of “Eight Flying Kangaroos driven by a delightful Aussie Koala named Jimbo” looked good on paper, (what could possibly go wrong, right?), it proved to be a disaster as shown in the award-winning documentary “2017 The Year Australia almost missed Christmas.”

We strongly suggested that they go with our original suggestion of using flying Norwegian elk rabbits as they were roughly the same size as tiny reindeer, worked well with Rudolph and in trial tests were actually faster than the reindeer. The cost to operate were about the same as the C.O.B. was replaced with Timothy hay with the other ingredient costs being similar. Mrs. Claus agreed with us, and was sure her husband would too, so don’t be surprised to see flying rabbits on Christmas eve in 2026. 

As far as the reindeer teasing Rudolph, we suggested that Old Nick reread Chapter 27 of our book as it covered this very problem with simple solutions, such as limiting their time on social media and television. Hopefully, all our suggestions got his blood pressure down so he can enjoy some cookies this year. 

Mrs. Claus thanked us for our time, invited us up for a summertime visit, promised to pass on glad tidings to the jolly old guy, wished us a Merry Christmas and asked us to give Thor a BIG hug! 

Paws for thoughts

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Bucky, Kixx, Thor, Pekan and Oscar. 

Thom Donitz and Trish Lynn are neighbors and close friends who share their love of animals and wildlife. Trish and Thom are residents of Tumwater. Contact them at  pets@theJOLTnews.com.