the cutest thing you ever did see

It's a pretty big day in our house- Lola's 6th birthday!!

Her birthday is just an estimate, of course. We got her from the Humane Society when she was about 8 weeks old...so we just counted back and picked a day and called it her birthday. July 11 it was! I bet she was an adorable newborn puppy...but luckily she was still stinkin' cute when we got her at 8 weeks!

Choosing Lola was one of our first great marital compromises. We'd both wanted a dog for months. I grew up with dogs- always small ones (except for a few large ones which terrorized me). I knew small dogs. I loved small dogs. I wanted to get a small dog.

Matt had never had a dog, but something in his Y chromosome led him to believe that he absolutely needed a large dog. Despite the fact the he knew and loved my family's small dogs, he refused to entertain the notion of bringing one into our house. Men need BIG dogs.

Obviously his ignorance annoyed me. Matt knew nothing about dogs! He didn't know what it took to take care of them, to feed them, to pay their vet bills-- that everything hinges on size, and bigger=more expensive!! And big dogs would make big messes, make big piles of poop that we'd have to scoop, and like...we really just needed a small dog. Obviously.

So we didn't get a dog for months...locked in our standstill about dog size.

Finally it came to us. The perfect compromise. A mutt puppy of indeterminate breed. We decided to go pick out a small puppy that we both loved. We'd be sure we couldn't tell what she might grow up to be. And then we'd bring her home and love her and by the time she grew up, to whatever size that may be, we would already love her and not care how big or small she was.

We chose Lola on September 27, 2008. Clearly, she was the cutest puppy not only in her litter, but in the whole world. The Humane Society people guessed that she might be "part Lab, part terrier." Since my eyes are not broken, I felt a little skeptical about that terrier part, but it still gave me comfort to hear them mention a smaller breed along with LAB-- something I decidedly would NOT select if given a choice.

We brought Lola home, and just as we'd planned, we fell in love. She was a wonderful puppy, easy to house train, and as it turned out, Matt took to doggie fatherhood just fine. You couldn't even tell he was a newbie. Lola grew up to be absolutely perfect, size-wise and otherwise. She weighs around 50 pounds and sheds like crazy and I couldn't care less. I can't believe I would have passed her over if I'd known how big she would grow up to be. I would have missed out on the best doggie ever!!

Happy Birthday, Lola. Even though you're six, you still can't read, so you'll never see this...but I hope you know how wonderful and adorable we still think you are. But if you decided to shed less, we would be okay with that, too. Just so you know.