Happy Birthday Midnight!

Our little fur daughter is growing up! She’s, apparently, one year old today.

 

I say apparently because when I first spoke with the breeder on the phone she told me the puppies were born on September 7th, 2007, but a few days later when we drove out of the city to the farm and picked her out of the 12 to 14 puppies that were playing in the pen of a huge barn she gave me papers that said Midnight was born August 26th. Then … about two months later we finally received her official Canadian Kennel Club papers (since she was registered as a purebred Labrador Retriever) the papers said August 25th.

See why we’re confused? I think something fishy was going on at that farm. The parents we met were both yellow labs yet the majority of the puppies were black females. I know it’s possible for two yellow labs to have black pups, but with all the confusion about the date of birth we feel that the breeder probably had two or three litters on the go. Plus, as it turns out we got a very sick puppy! We discovered on the first full day that she was with us (November 24th) that she had a gastro infection, a heavy infestation of round worms and later she also developed an ear infection and an eye infection.

Here she is on her second day with us, November 25th, 2007, when she was just 13 weeks old:

 

I can hardly believe she was ever that small – and oh so cute! She looks like a toy!

I guess Midnight lucked out, because we treat her well. Took her to the vet on the first day she was here when we realized something was wrong and she’s fed dog food with only natural organic ingredients. She’s got it made!

So … what do you get a dog on it’s first birthday?

She has tons of toys and tasty treats … We were thinking that we’d have BBQ’d steak for dinner and give her a portion as a special treat. We have given her grilled steak and chicken before as well as plain veggies, but we don’t give her these kind of foods too often. Hopefully this doesn’t cause more gas – she’s still got that problem, I think it’s her hormones since she’s in heat right now.

I think Midnight started celebrating her birthday early …

 

We had her out in the garden on Saturday and she loved being able to roam around the yard while we sat at the patio table. She also enjoyed rolling in the grass!

Oh and this was Midnight on November 25th at 13 weeks during her first visit to the backyard. As you can see she’s exploring the garden. I think she found a small green pepper that had fallen off the dying plant (of course we took it away from her).

 

You’ve come a long way Midnight! Now if we can just teach her to stay off the home theater seating with her bones everything will be great!