A Wholesome, Fun-Filled First Year

Dear Cubby,

Happy Birthday, Baby!  I can hardly believe you're a year old already.  Do you have any idea what you've accomplished in such a short time?

You completely stole my heart away the first time I met you at a month old, and the night we brought you home you had me wrapped around your tiny toenails.  Sophie, not so much.  She became your dear ol' auntie who taught you some manners when you needed them, and things haven't changed much since then.  She can still slap you down when you get too wild.

Since then you've been the quintessential puppy ... you've chewed things up, gotten into trouble, destroyed dozens of toys, and run up hundreds of dollars in vet bills.  You can dig a hole with the best of them, and you've just recently learned that there are some things in this whole wide world you don't have to eat!

Your eighteen weeks of obedience training were fun and games for you, and you had no idea that was only the beginning.  Then I taught you to play many wonderful games like "pick-up" and "brace" and "finish" ... and we built upon them to make up even more.  How could you know those little games are so important in teaching you to help me?

At only ten months came the schooling you were born for, Happy Tails Service Dogs.  You've been training for two months now and you're doing so well!  I just can't tell you how proud I am of you.  It's so funny ... when Sophie and I went through Happy Tails, one of our classmates was Wendi Kay.  Now we're going through it together again, and this time she has your sister, Jazz.  So today is her birthday too.  Isn't it awesome you get to keep a link to your canine family?

It sure was a grand day when you passed your S.T.A.R. puppy test.  And a big thank you to Ginny for letting us know there even was such a thing.  It was a precursor to the CGC test, which you'll be taking soon as well.  After that comes the public access test and then we really get moving!!

Things will be changing for you this coming year.  As your training progresses you'll learn even more new things to help me out, you'll be fitted with a harness, you'll wear your first set of shoes (sooner than you think), and I'd venture to say you'll even take a ride or two in an airplane!  But that's later ... just for now, let's have an amazing birthday!  I love you so much, Cubby!