Dogged determination at Santa Paws photo fundraiser

You think being Santa for sneezing, crying kids is tough. Try playing St. Nick for barking, hissing, nipping, and yes, sometimes peeing animals.

“They’ve only peed on the floor, not on me yet,” said Steve Dudek, who volunteered as Santa on Sunday to pose with animals at the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region.

The “Santa Paws” event over the weekend was a chance for the society to raise money while giving people cute pictures of their animals posing with Santa. The pictures turned out adorable, but Dudek had his hands full to get them.

Consider Conan, a rambunctious black Labrador puppy who loved to jump up, refused to sit down, and spit up on the floor. Twice. Or there was the time Dudek posed with four mammoth-size dogs who tried to make a run for it while he was holding their leashes.

“They made a sleigh out of me,” he said.

In his day job, he’s an El Paso County sheriff’s deputy and processes inmates at the jail. Compared with the inmates, the animals are easy, he said. He volunteers at the society regularly with his son, and working with the animals lets him see a sunny side to life he usually doesn’t get to see at the jail.

Finding that joy in animals is the whole point of the Santa Paws event, said Erin Carroll, acting director of community resources.

“Normally, people take their kids to see Santa, but for a lot of people, their pets are their kids,” she said.

Most of the animals who came on Sunday were pampered ones like Lily, the peekapoo who gets scrambled eggs and hash browns for breakfast every morning. Her owner Karen Sobotka took Lily to the groomers Saturday so she’d look her best for the photo shoot.

Lily’s pose with Santa went off without a hitch, and Sobotka couldn’t wait to show off the pictures.

In truth, the pictures were more for the enjoyment of the owners than the animals, Dudek said.

“The animals don’t know why they’re posing for a picture with a strange guy with a beard,” he said.