Friday, March 19, 2010

Happy Birthday Sensi

Eight years ago today, my dog was the first born of his litter.
Twelve other puppies would follow. Yep — twelve. It was a big litter.
I sometimes wonder about the folks we got him from and his dog parents. Are they even still alive? I suppose it’s not likely. But, I know the family was keeping one of the puppies. I wonder what that dog looks like now.

A dog-rific celebration
Growing up, I had next door neighbors who had two golden retrievers. The couple didn’t have kids and treated their show quality goldens as if they were little people in dog suits. For birthdays, the dogs would get a big ol’ party just like a kid.
The woman of the house often talked about planning their birthday party with me, so I know that she’d even make a special trip up north, driving several hours to get some sort of dog-friendly ice cream.
I’ve never gone quite to those extremes. In fact, I must admit that there have been some years I’ve even forgot about his birthday all together. As he gets older though, I think more and more about the time he has left with us and I just really want to make these years “golden” for him.
Tonight, he’s getting two extra large stuffed teddy bears I picked up from the Salvation Army. I’ll wrap them up for him and let him have a go at ripping apart the box — he enjoys opening the gift about as much as he likes the toys inside.
We can’t give him wet food because of the allergy ordeal we’re still trekking our way through. Wet food is one thing he always gets for special occasions. And we can’t give him hard chew toys for the same reason.
So, our dog-rific celebration will be a hike. Brent and I plan to take him on a three mile loop this weekend through a state park. Seems like a great way to celebrate a dog’s birthday — and a cheap one too.

When is your dog’s birthday?
Most people celebrate their dog’s birthday on the day they brought the dog home with them.
I don’t. I might not have his birth date exactly right, but I basically counted back the weeks from when we got him.
Do you celebrate your dog’s birthday? And if so, which date did you choose celebrate — the date your dog came home with you or the date of the dog’s actual birth?

4 comments:

  1. yes, we always celebrate, and we always know their birthday, at the present time we have 2 little chihuahuas, (nikki sue & cindi ann) they are wonderful, we will be going on vacation in may, they travel really good, before them, we had 3 westies, they lived to be pretty old, 13, 15, and 16yrs. before the westies we had 3 male mixed breeds they also were old when they passed on, my husband and I love dogs, we never had children (by choice) so our dogs have been our children!

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  2. Becca's Barkery dog treat are the best way to celebrate with Man's Best Friends Basket
    http://www.bfporte.com/mabefrgiba.html

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  3. Hello Chihuahua owner! Regarding your "so our dogs have been our children" comment, I read an interesting thing yesterday in a book I'm reading by Temple Grandin. She said petting a dog has been proven to raise hormones that are associated with being parenting and wrote that every time you pet a dog, "it's like getting a good parent shot." There's a health and emotional benefit to this, so kudos to your and your dogs!

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  4. And as for the marketing pitch for Becca's Barkery dog treat, I checked out the link and it looks as though this basket might be best for a small, nonallergic dog.

    ReplyDelete