Day 1715

Today is National Dog Day. I was curious how this holiday originated and quickly discovered that creating your own "national day" has become somewhat of a cottage industry. Creating recognized national days has become a hobby for some and a calling for others. It is remarkably easy to create your own special day. You or I could do it if we had the inclination. The woman who created National Dog Day in 2004 has also created National Cat Day, National Living Room Day, and National Farm Animals Day. Although there are only 365 days in a year, there are already over 13,000 officially recognized national days. This all seems kind of weird to me. Here I had been thinking that National Dog Day was a real holiday and it is just a totally made up event created by a woman who likes holidays.

My own important dog day is tomorrow. It is Dot's birthday. Our best guess is that she will be 14 years old tomorrow. I say this because we've been telling people she was 13 all this year. It's hard to know exactly how old a rescue dog is. When we initially adopted Dot, we thought she was about three years old. Our vet thought that this was a good guess. She was fully grown at the time and her teeth looked like those of an adult dog. We may be wrong. Dot could be older or younger than we think she is. August 27 is not the day Dot was born. It was the day we adopted her. It is still a very special day. Especially this year. When Dot had a 105 degree fever a few months ago and was clinging to life in the ICU, we didn't know if she would make it to her next birthday. The fact that both of our dogs survived cancer this year and are now healthy and happy again makes this a very good year. We will definitely celebrate tomorrow.

I spent more time taking Dot to her physical therapy session today than I did working. It's time consuming being a dog's rehab nurse. Dot did great on the underwater treadmill and walked a full twenty minutes. She is strong enough now that I've started walking both dogs together again. We had an enjoyable pre-dawn walk this morning and another not so enjoyable, but very necessary, walk in the afternoon heat. Dot really got her exercise today.

We used to bake the dogs a special three layer cake on their birthdays. At some point in the past, I even took a cake decorating class and became quite adept at decorating fancy dog cakes. Neither of us has the energy for that sort of thing anymore. I don't think we've baked a dog cake in over three years. These days, we either go buy a cake or do nothing at all. In truth, the dogs would rather have a nice juicy piece of chicken than a cake anyway. We'll conjure up some sort of a celebration.

I wish it were Friday tomorrow. I actually wish every day were Friday. I could make that happen easy enough by just going out to eat for breakfast every morning and picking up something tasty for dinner at Whole Foods or Central Market. This seems all wrong though. Once a week is a treat. Every day would be an indulgence. We can't have that. Indulgence has always been my personal road to ruin.

Cammy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day