Happy Birthday Beagz!

Dear Goddamned Beagle,

Congratulations on turning seven today! While I suspect you may have turned seven at least once before, seven seems like a good thing to turn this year as it allows the pet insurance to be not too pricey, but allows you a young middle age.

I admit I have no real idea when your actual birthday is. Your adoption paperwork might have said May something, an equally invented date, but your paperwork went out with the recycling the day you ate through part of it to get to the groceries in the bag below. My mistake – I was not yet aware of your determination when it comes to snacking. I think I also may have put your birthdate down as March, and maybe October on various paperwork – you’ve required a lot of paperwork in the eight months we’ve known each other – but when the time came to get that pet insurance, I decided that January 15th seemed as good a permanent date as any, a mid-month day shared with me in a month lacking much to celebrate.

I’d planned to give you quite the feast: French fries and bacon and roast cauliflower, placed just barely in reach so you could enjoy the thievery as much as the meal. I’d planned to watch, camera at the ready as you pulled the paper plate down, showering yourself with your loot. But then you weren’t yourself for a week or so, and a vet visit discovered crystals that are making you miserable and require, at least temporarily, a strict and specific diet. How, then, to celebrate?

It was cold today, just in the low 30s. Though you’re a dog who needs her exercise and plenty of interesting things to explore, I decided to gift you with the consequences of keeping you inside today. Some tug, a bout of the zoomies (with at least one more due before bed I suspect), and a whole day with only brief bathroom breaks in the cold seemed to suit you just fine.

I also kept the fire going all day. You’re gifted in many ways Beagle, but at sleeping in front of the fire you’re an Olympian. While you started in the kitchen per our usual coffee-by-the-window habit, you quickly decided that the baseboard heater unit offered better warmth. But no blanket, and no bed, so that didn’t last.

You then moved to the couch, in fact so quickly that it took me a moment to find you, as I followed behind with my coffee. Only your tail gave your location away.

Throughout the day you snorted, stretched, snored, occasionally shifted, scratched, licked, and covered and uncovered as your thermostat saw fit. As is your way, you’d occasionally overheat, breaching from your cocoon gasping and panting, then making your way to your water bowl to drink and take a cruise around the kitchen, the clip clip clip of your nails sending a message of purpose and efficiency as you completed your inspection and returned to the couch.

Aside from the zoomies and tug you were really only awake for two other events today: when I ate lunch, and when I ate dinner. Both times your concentration was complete, though at lunch you didn’t bother to raise all the way, tofu salad being less impressive than veggie pizza, apparently. A small piece of pizza bone fell your way I will admit. It is your birthday after all.

Tomorrow we’ll go for a walk back out in the cold, as much for our health as for my sanity. You’re not the easiest to live with when you’re bored. For tonight, we’ll make one more quick trip to the dog yard before we head up to the king-sized bed with the memory foam topper. I’ll even get the fire going in our room for a while, and hide a few pieces of that new kibble in the fluffy comforter you’ll crawl into.

Happy birthday, Beagz. Congrats on the big Zero Seven.

Love,

Your Person

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