Yesterday was Hobbit's first birthday. It is hard to believe that our "little" puppy is now a year old. In honor of the occasion I made the above collage. You can see that he certainly isn't so little anymore but he is still our puppy at heart (and in deeds).
Because it had been about 8 years since I had a dog, I was very excited when we bought the house and decided that we could finally have a dog again. We had found a breeder that we liked and had even thought about buying a puppy a year earlier. While the family was excited about Hobbit's litter being born, I think that I was the most excited. It was so great to see and touch the puppies for the first time. Kids' excitement is contagious, so it was really neat to see how happy the kids were to see the puppies for the first time and to see that they were thinking that one of these puppies is going to be ours.
As time went by our enthusiasm built and we all couldn't wait to bring Hobbit home and then the day finally arrived and we did finally bring him home. As with having children, the world is new to them and you start to see the world through their eyes, so there were a whole new world of Hobbit firsts for us. He got to know his new home and family and became a celebrity in our neighborhood.
I don't know that there is any average puppy life to compare, but Hobbit certainly seemed to have his share of misfortune. He wasn't even six months old yet, when he got something stuck in one of his ears and he had to have it removed on a Saturday evening under full anesthisia. Another time I was out of town on a business trip and he had to be put under again to have surgery on an infection had developed. In November, Hobbit had his first cold/virus. It seemed that there had been a local epidemic. The vet suggested putting a scare on him and we were totally amazed that he kept it on. He usually tries to take off anything that you put on him. We live near a field that is often nice to walk dogs (and Hobbit has been walked there a lot!) but in the Summer we had several times where we had to remove ticks (not a whole lot of fun).
Hobbit is very people oriented. I know that many dogs are but when we take him for a walk or people come to visit us, he is always genuinely excited to see people. Going outside for him is a chance to see what people are out there and what dogs he can play with, a true adventure. Sometimes he gets a little too excited and I know that some people think, "oh no, here comes that crazy Hobbit" but he is a very loving dog and when you see how unfriendly and boring many other dogs are, it certainly wounldn't hurt anything if more dogs were like Hobbit.
Hobbit likes to play fetch, albeit, a little different than most dogs play it. On the weekends, he realizes that he can convince me to take him out and play some ball with him. Although I"m not always motivated to play ball with him, I quickly see how much fun he is having and can't help but be in a good mood.
Yesterday Hobbit had a visit from his sister Kira. The two of them play so well together, I think that she might even be his best friend from the dog world, although there are a couple of other younger dogs in the area that he plays nicely with. Kira brought him a nice toy alligator and we gave him a nice long raw-hide bone.
I've done several posts about Hobbit at this blog (feel free to browse through the archive at the very bottom of the site), I've also posted several pictures of him at Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr, so feel free to have a look. I have an album at Facebook of Hobbit pictures that should be view without joining. I believe that the album at MySpace is viewable without having to joing as well.
All in all Hobbits first year has been a wonderful experience for us. I'm looking forward to all the other coming years. Happy Birthday, Hobbit.
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