Piper turned eight this week and I felt like we had to mark the occasion with something special so I invited two human friends and their dogs over to our house for a wee puppy party.
Yes, I did!
It was a team effort. The youngest contributed small party hats she bought at the Village Quire here in Westboro. The eldest, who I picked up from Kingston on Tuesday and is home for the holidays (!), helped keep the peace.
It was a lot of fun. First: I made dog-friendly hors-d’oeuvres of sliced turkey and cheese cubes (although the people were welcome to eat them too).
Piper was ready to dig in at the get-go. I suspect she didn’t really want to share but I told her she had to:
For the people, I prepared some fancy cheese, grapes (grapes are NOT good for dogs, by the way), chips and salsa, and avocado toasts.
Someone was QUITE eager for the party to get started. Clearly, the guests could not arrive soon enough:
Finally, our two doggy friends arrived (with their respective humans). It was pretty wild at first, to say the least. I will say this… it is impossible to put tiny paper hats on three dogs and expect them to keep still long for a photo:
This was the best I could do:
There were a few, er, incidents. Here’s a good tip! When serving cheese cubes on toothpicks, make sure the dog doesn’t decide to unleash her inner wolf, lunge at a cheese cube, and try to eat it with the toothpick still embedded in it. Sigh.
There was a lot of bum sniffing, some chasing, and lots of tail wagging. All of the bones, rawhides, and pig ears in Piper’s bin got a good chewing during the party, which I was happy about. I mean let’s face it, one of the best things about parties is checking out other people’s stuff, amirite? I suspect that one of the bones is buried in the snow somewhere. And SOMEONE tried to bury one in our couch and even left one upstairs. I won’t name names but clearly, she had a good time:
Speaking of which, I think I have two dozen blurry photos of this gal, who jumped up and down in front of me while I tried to get the perfect shot:
And then there were PRESENTS. It was also very exciting, and not just for the birthday girl:
The whole thing reminded me of the birthday parties we used to host when the kids were really small: shepherding young attendees around and making sure no one hurt themselves (or another party goer!) and that there are enough snacks to go around.
Piper’s eighth birthday was a good excuse to get in a bit of pre-Christmas socializing for the humans too. I really should make more of an effort to do this in the new year. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The dogs were ESPECIALLY keen when I had cheese in my hand… no toothpick this time:
Cheese is the secret to friendship obviously.
The sad part is that we made loot bags for our doggy guests and forgot to give them out at the end. Oh well. That just means that I’ll have to take Piper for a walk and drop them off. :)
