Dempsey's special day

Although it feels like I spent most of today tickling the cat -- long story, but it's "physical therapy," honest -- we tried to make Dempsey's birthday a special day for him.

He was very patient in his kennel this morning while I fed the cat, a 45-minute procedure with the feeding tube. When he got out, he got an extra-long belly rub, and instead of training for his breakfast as usual, he got it all in orange moon ball, one of his favorite treat-dispensing toys. Then he waited patiently while Doreen baked a peanut butter carrot cake for him, though he was very curious about it.





The best part of his day was when his sister Boston arrived. They played and played and played, and when they were good and tired ("good" being highly correlated with "tired"), we got out the cake and balloons and had a birthday party.



Although Dempsey had been very curious about the cake when Doreen was baking it, it seems he lost all hope of ever getting any when it sat on the counter all day.



He couldn't believe his good fortune when he actually got a chance to eat it. Unfortunately, he blew it.



But since it's his birthday, we gave him another piece in the privacy of his own kennel, where he promptly ate it, "frosting" first.



And of course, since both Boston and Dempsey are in training to be service dogs, we felt we had to throw in some socialization, too. The "party blowouts" were a success, but we obviously did not do enough practice wearing the funny birthday hats, so this is the best picture we have of them taking them off.