People Were Making Memories With Their 4-Legged Friends On Sat.

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- People were able to make a holiday memory with their four-legged friends this weekend. The Tri-County Humane Society (TCHS) held its annual Santa Paws fundraiser Friday - Sunday.

Paul Habstritt, WJON

For $50 people got a professional photo taken with their pet and they could include Santa in the picture too. Tri-County Humane Society's Marketing and Communications Director Kate Kompas says will people get their photo taken in all sorts of different ways:

"Some dogs are not fans of Santa so sometimes Santa has to hide but you can do some with Santa some without, it's great seeing everyone bring their dogs in, their cats in, all sorts of pets kind of the strangest pet, well I shouldn't say strange, but we had a person bring in a donkey last year, I mean people really bring in their animals because they're family members and this is the time to celebrate family."

Paul Habstritt, WJON

She says it is fun to see the variety of pets people bring in:

"We've seen just about everything you can think of people brought in goats I believe one year. people did bring in horses, obviously, we couldn't bring the horses inside for the photo so we had to improvise outside, people have brought in; there is one family that brought in their gecko for years and years so it's great seeing everyone come in and just seeing the variety of animals."

Paul Habstritt, WJON

Kompas says it is great to see people and their pets come back year after year. She says the volunteers always put together a great set for the backdrop on the photos and they took walk-ins this year for the first time since Covid.

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TCHS hoped to raise about $9,000 with the event. Everyone got a flash drive of their pictures to bring home so they could print out their pictures or make holiday cards.

Paul Habstritt, WJON