If You Can’t Lick ‘Em . . .

Convinced that it was defeating its purpose of finding homes for abandoned animals, the Ventura County Humane Society is now making pets available for Christmastime adoptions for the first time in more than 20 years.

Humane societies across the country have long campaigned against giving pets as holiday gifts out of concern that they will be inappropriate for their intended recipients and hence add to the never-ending stream of unwanted animals that fill shelters everywhere.

But in a break from the practice of most other chapters, officials at the nonprofit shelter in Ojai have reversed their 25-year ban on late-December adoptions. Besides making it difficult to place some abandoned animals, shelter officials believed that they were indirectly supporting the commercial breeding industry, which supplies many pet stores.

“We were beating our heads against the wall saying, ‘Don’t give pets as Christmas presents,’ because people would just go to a pet store and buy one there,” said the shelter’s public relations director, Tim Dewar. “Maybe with this change, we can cut down on some of the support for the . . . mills that keep making more and more animals.”

Shelter officials say that despite the change in policy, they still will not allow adoptions if a pet is intended for someone outside the home.

“There’s too much of a concern that the animal will be the wrong color or the wrong size, and then just end up back here or at a different shelter,” said Jolene Hoffman, director of the shelter.

While the end of the dog-breeding season has left the Ventura County chapter with only a few puppies, the facility near downtown Ojai is overflowing with kittens. Adult cats and dogs are also available. The shelter does not euthanize animals unless they are severely ill or aggressive.

Jocelyn and Kevin McIvers drove down earlier this week from Santa Barbara on the prowl for Christmas kittens for their son, Christopher, 10, and daughter, Natalie, 9, who they say have been pleading for a cat they can each call their own. The couple picked out one 12-week-old black-and white fuzz ball, and planned to return before the weekend to pick up another from a litter of tabbies.

“We didn’t want to buy from a breeder,” said Jocelyn, while her 5-month-old son, Will, perched in a piggy-back sack, chewed on her long brown hair. “There are so many unadopted cats and dogs.”

The couple had concocted an elaborate scheme for keeping the pets a secret until Christmas morning, including plans to board them at their vet and, after that, their neighbor’s home.

“The kids are just going bananas,” Jocelyn said. “They’ve been asking for so long. I had just wanted them to wait until they got older.”

Debbie Palmer dispensed with any holiday surprise, and brought her 6-year-old daughter, Emilie, to the shelter to pick out her own kitten.

“She wanted one last Christmas and I told her to wait a year,” said Palmer, an Ojai resident and mother of three.

Emilie was eyeing the 10-week-old tabbies, holding one and then another as she tried to make her choice. When her brother Erik, 8, tried to weigh in with his favorite, she told her mother she knew which one she wanted.

“This one,” said Emilie, gently stroking the neck of a male with an earnest face. “He licked me.”

Because the kitten was not yet neutered, Emilie had to wait a few days to bring her early Christmas present home. But with promises from her mother that they would pick up the animal at the earliest opportunity, she took the delay in stride.

“I always dreamed of getting a pet for Christmas,” Palmer said. “And now I’m doing it for my daughter.”

Kathy Jenks, the county’s director of animal regulation, said the county animal shelter generally suspends adoptions in the week prior to Christmas to prevent the animals from being given as gifts.

“There’s just too much that happens on Christmas morning to worry about new pets--the doorbell’s ringing, got to go off to grandma’s or church or whatever,” Jenks said.

But Jenks said she supports the new holiday adoption program at the Humane Society because the staff there is being careful to avoid offering pets that will end up as a surprise gift.

“Well, unless of course, it’s parents buying for their kids,” she said. “That’s an OK kind of surprise.”