Four

I can't continue on with blog posts until I've gushed about my little girl dog...

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• This little dog is literally my best friend. She is so unconditional with her love. She listens to me when I talk to her, and she totally senses how I'm feeling and knows just when to snuggle me or attack me with wet doggie kisses. She wants to spend time with me all the time and let's me hug and kiss on her as much as I want with no complaints.
• She's super protective of me. She doesn't like any male figure that approaches me or her in just the wrong way, even going to the extent of trying to defend me against Spencer (the "alpha dog" of the family) if it appears to her that he's being too aggressive toward me, i.e. pretend fights and wrestling matches. ;)
• When we leave her at the house alone, even just a 10 minute trip down the street, no fail, every time we come home she has taken her dog bed, blanket, and every single toy she owns and pulled and scattered them to every corner of the house. It's quite hilarious to come home and see her hard work of mess making. I suppose she's either trying to keep busy, or she's expressing her displeasure that we left her at home. One day I will put up a hidden camera so I can witness it happening.
• She may have 2 inch legs, but this little dog LOVES to RUN with me! She can't go as far as I can, and she gets hot easy and likes to plop under a shade tree every 10 minutes, but she lays there for only about 30 seconds and then jumps up with a look on her face that says, "Ready? let's go!" I love it. She then sleeps the remainder of the day...another of her favorite pass-times.

Hershey had a birthday on April 1st! Four years ago she was born in a Los Angeles, CA suburb. We lived in Corona, CA that summer doing sales and 9 weeks later we just happened to see the ad in the Sunday newspaper. We had been looking for weenie dog pups, but had no luck in finding prices under $600. We got lucky...Hershey only cost $250. We knew those pups would go fast, so we were bad and ditched church {I never do that, but I had a gut feeling} and made the drive to go take a look at them. I'm so glad we did, or we would have missed out on the pure joy that Hershey has been in our lives. I'll never forget the first time I saw her...a little bit shy, and so small, lots of soft brown fuzz and those big green eyes. She was quieter than her little brother, the runt of the litter, who jumped around everywhere and was much more playful. We half debated over whether to buy him, but we already knew beforehand that we wanted a brown female. We picked her up and took her out on the front lawn to see if she would play with us. Not too much interaction with us at first, but she was trying so hard to get those short legs over that tall grass! She was toppling all over and was so determined. She soon started walking back and forth between me and Spencer. Yes, she was more mild than the other pups, but something about that made me feel a connection to her. "We'll take her!" we said. And I cradled her in my arms in a blanket the whole ride home. That's where the love began. I love this picture of me and her on her very first walk. She seemed so thrilled! That was the summer I began my love affair with exercise, walking and running. It felt so good and I just loved hanging out with my dog. I decided to re-applied to BYU-I just so I could take the aerobics instruction class and certify to teach. Best decision I ever made. This picture is also proof that, yes, even I know what it feels like to have that extra weight gain you want to get rid of. Whether it's a little or a lot, it sucks to have it.

So for Hershey's special day she gets to do all of the things that she LOVES to do... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

♥Breakfast with mama out on the sunny deck. "Can I lick your cereal bowl?" ♥A new toy...Frank the weenie dog beanie baby. Off for a ride in the back seat of the car! ♥A trip to the park for a hard walk/run session on the trail and a good fetch/catch game with her most favorite squeaky ball...until she plopped into exhaustion. "That was so much fun, mama!" ♥Off to the best place in the world: PetsMart! I got her a special canned dinner and found this cute "It's my birthday" shirt on sale and couldn't resist. Oddly enough, she really likes to try on the clothes there. Not to mention walk/sniff down the dog food & treat isle. ♥Came home and took a good bath with some new special shampoo and awesome smelling conditioner. She LOVES taking a bath, and I thought it was so cool that I captured a picture of her sticking out her tongue! ♥All clean with her brand new shirt on, we let her dig into her special dinner while we sang to her: "You've had a birthday, shout Horray! We want to SiNG to YoU ToDaY! One year OLDeR and WiSeR too! HaPpY BirThDaY to YOU!" Yes, I know you're just a dog, Hershey girl. But you mean so much more than that to me, and daddy too. You'll always be my puppy, right? At least for the next 10 years. I'll always love you. Happy Birthday, sweet girl. ♥Love, Mama