Happy Birthday Bonham!

According to Bonham's paperwork, he turns 5 today.   Hip Hip Hooray!     The day started with a wonderful rendition of "Happy Birthday To You" and it's ended with Bonham snuggling in Joe's room because he's broken out the electric blanket.   Man, do dogs ever LOVE electric blankets!   They actually have heated dog beds too - I'd love to get one of those.   But with the foster activity in my house, I'd end up with someone marking it and shorting it out.  ;)

It is also my niece's birthday - Happy Birthday Wendy!  I was just figuring it up and had convinced myself I'm wrong, but she's actually 30 years old.    I've always heard you don't feel old until you hear how old other people are getting - with my baby niece being 30, I offically feel old. 

To celebrate Bonham's big day JTK presented him with a bowl full of whipped cream this evening.  A homemade Puppy Latte if you will.    Bonham loved it.   These pictures are so funny - you can see how into it he was.   His tongue looks enormous and he looks so happy.    You can also see the whipped cream smeared all over his face.    Of course, before I could finish taking the picture he did a really good job of cleaning it up.   These pictures do not tell the story of just how messy he looked. 

When people adopt a dog or cat, they generally aren't lucky enough to know their actual birth date.   There's a practice that I love - it's when people celebrate their "Gotcha" day.    Meaning, they celebrate the day they adopted their furry family member and treat it as a birthday.   That is such a great idea - a perfect way to commemorate a very important day and a day worth celebrating.  After all, it's very similar to a birthday since it's the first day of a brand new life.

I have a couple of people interested in Burton.   I can't believe it, but I have two applications on him at once.   It's always difficult to figure out what to do but I do a much better job of letting people know what's going on.    Over the summer, I did an awful job of letting a family know that I had chosen a 2nd application to adopt a dog.    The home was clearly the better home for the particular dog and I just did not want to face telling the woman he wasn't going home with them.    She was really upset and emailed and called our director, etc.   I felt awful and I've learned my lesson.     We are just volunteers, but this is not a glamorous or easy position to be in.   :)   These days I always tell people if there's any other applications out there.    Usually, it really does work itself out on its own.   If I get two applications one of them often change their mind or they don't really like the dog when they meet them, etc.   It's not a very common instance for me to have to really decide what to do.

So far, though, both of these families seem great.   I haven't gotten through the references on my second application  but  the ones I called on the first one were fantastic.   It was funny, I called her sister for a reference and the husband answered and he misunderstood what I was saying.   He thought his wife was trying to adopt a dog and he kept telling me "Oh no, she's not going to adopt a dog"   And I kept saying, "Oh yes she is" because I didn't realize he thought I was talking about his wife.   Once we figured out what the other was talking about, we had a good laugh. 

This weekend is the Holiday Magic event.   It's in downtown St. Louis at the convention center.     We  went   last year for the first time and it was great fun.   I love Christmas and it's really beautifully decorated and filled with a lot of fun stuff to buy and look at.   Purina is there and they have their dog team and we get to have a Puppy Parade showing off our adoptable pets.     Last year one of my fosters was adopted by a convention center employee and so was the foster of one of my friend's.      We had so much fun - Joey and I are really looking forward to it again this year.

Happy Birthday Bonham - let this be the first birthday of many more where you're treasured and pampered  But most importantly, hopefully you'll always be dressed up on your birthday.  :)