Yoshi just had his very first birthday!
The first birthday for my doggies is a milestone, and though I try to remember every year to celebrate their birthdays with them the first one is special.
I had planned on having a whole day with him doing stuff that he likes to do best, but the weather is crap, so we'll save the celebration day as far as that goes when the weather gets nicer... it's been rainy and cool for days and days and still supposed to be rainy for more.
I made him a special dinner of chicken breast with mashed potatoes, and my next door neighbor gave him her special recipe for green beans and carrots (thank goodness because my veggies are always plain and boring and she's a great cook). I got him a great big knuckle bone with lots of yummy marrow to dig after that he spent about a half hour gnawing on and then got bored with it and rolled it around in the dirt (but he does that to everything he eats... I guess it's not considered seasoned properly without a liberal coating of dirt). I also got him a big stuffed toy of a wolf to beat up on (which is now out in the rain and had been liberally coated with tasty dirt). Every time I throw it back in the house out of the rain he runs in and rescues it and takes it back outside.
We did do some celebrating games he likes best, like Hide the Mommy, the Make the Bed Game, and Hunt the Bathtub Squid. We also played in the mud together because playing in mud is his all-time favorite thing to do. I had forgotten how much fun it is to play in mud. Haven't done that since I was a wee little kid, but it's still wonderful... glorious squishy gooey mud! I'm so bummed I didn't even think to take pictures especially since I think I got the more generous mud coating than he did. Then to top off the day, we went to the skating rink and played in the big snow piles that the machine scrapes off the ice and dumps in the back though the piles were considerably smaller than they were during the winter. When the weather clears up we'll go play at the creek and run around through the woods stalking critters for the rest of his celebration play day.
Though he's officially an adult now ("officially" being the operative word since he sure doesn't act like it!) I don't think I'm going to let him drive the car or hang out at the corner bar now.
Happy Birthday, Yoshi!!!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Need pictures of the mud party 
A big "Arf!" from Cindy and Murphy and a 
from me.