Jazz's 5th Birthday

Today we celebrated Jazz's fifth birthday.  She's had a wonderful year, earning her Rally championship (RAE) and her CPE Agility championship (C-ATCH), as well as excelling in her role as best friend and snuggle buddy!

As always, we celebrated with a doggie birthday cake.  Jazz even got a birthday card and an extra bag of homemade treats from the bakery!

Since it was Jazz's big day, we gave her the first shot at nibbling on the cake, and as you can see, she enjoyed every bite.

Of course, no party is complete without the whole gang, so we let Tess and Indy in to share Jazz's cake.  All of the dogs know about birthday cakes, and Tess even recognized the box from the bakery when I brought it home!!

As you can see, we have no problems with our dogs sharing goodies.  They all dove right in and demolished the cake and then cleaned the crumbs off the floor.  Now all three are contentedly napping in their dog beds with bellies full of birthday cake!!

Jazz's litter was known as "The Bathtub Gang," because their breeder snapped a photo of all 10 puppies in a bathtub that became the cover of her book, A Tail of Ten Puppies.  Today, LaDonna sent us a Smilebox slideshow of some of the outtakes from the bathtub photos.  You can view that here.

In some ways, it seems likes the five years we have had Jazz have just flown by, and in other ways, it seems like Jazz and I have been together forever.  This is the dog I call "Mini Me" because we are so much alike.  Words cannot express how much joy Jazz brings me, whether as a team in the obedience, rally, or agility ring or gaiting along with me and Rocky out on the trail or just snuggling at home on the couch.  I can't imagine life without my little brown Dal and look forward to many more birthday celebrations.