The Christmas Puppies

CHRISTMAS PUPPIES NO. 3, 2012

You can blame these 'reindogs' if your gifts are a little late, or even lost, this year.  They look a bit confused.

This is the third installment in what I had hoped would be an annual Christmas Puppy series.  That's been impossible the last few years as I became busier with holiday orders. But for 2012, my dogs Bella and Corly locked horns and got lit up.  Just like people!

The pups in progress

Unlike my other works, I can't display the Christmas Puppy pictures year-round and they do take up space -- but people seem to get a kick out of them, and they are fun to do.  I worked this one in between doing holiday orders for customers, friends and families.  

Here are the other Christmas Puppy illustrations, and the "true" story behind them.

I made up a story, when my girls were little, called "The Christmas Puppy."  It had to do with a chocolate labrador retriever being the one who really made sure good kids got pets for presents.

CHRISTMAS PUPPIES 2011

Also, it's the Christmas Puppy who eats the cookies and drinks the milk, not Santa. Santa handles the toys. CP brings the dogs, ducks, hamsters, snakes and birds. He rides in a doghouse (as opposed to Snoopy, who rides ON a dog house).
There is no such thing as a Christmas Kitty.  If you got a cat for Christmas, you were bad. BAD.
Where do cats come from? Same letters as SANTA, rearranged.
Now you know.

It helped that we had such a brown dog at the time, named Hank, and that my kids were gullible and believed every word I said.
Those were the days.
I still call my dogs "Christmas Puppies" at Christmastime.
Corleone, the grinning Shepherd in the 2011 version of the Pups, was born Dec. 18, 2009, so he's a CP for real.
For. Real.

The above hallucination is based loosely on the Warner Brothers Looney Toons logo. Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny are replaced here by Corly and Bella. The rainbow rings are pine boughs.
This is the second Christmas Puppy picture, the first one being done in 2010, with Santa hats.   I eliminated from later drawings my BAD pet cats, Waylon (now deceased) and Weez.

CHRISTMAS PUPPIES 2010

Now that my girls are grown, they think the CP story, and hence the CP drawings, are ridiculous.  I think that has less to do with the actual productions than the fact that they see and smell the real Bella and Corly every day. They're not so special to them anymore -- although each daughter is directly responsible for bringing each dog into the house.
(As well as the cats.)

But I get a lot out of these canine clowns. And I draw them a lot.  Just scroll through Tom Wills Productions and see. They are everywhere, like dog hair.

ACTUAL CHRISTMAS PUPPIES

Everyone needs to lighten up around the holidays, myself included.  Believe in what you want.
If you want to tell your little kids that pets at Christmas come from a big Chocolate lab, go right ahead.
Believe.