Bayley's Birthday Present

When we got Bayley, we had no way to know how old she was. The vet told us she was probably between 9 months and 1 year old when we adopted her in April 2010.
In July 2010, we experienced a week of AWFUL behavior out of our dog including vigorously chasing flies, urinating EVERYWHERE, and chewing on all things hers and otherwise. Eventually, we discovered that our sweet puppy was in heat. Aha! That explained everything. So, we set up an appt. to get her spayed and determined that at this time, she must have been about a year. We decided to go by the rule that a puppy's second heat occurs at about 1 year of age. So, my husband and I (or mostly just I) decided to create Bayley's birthday (for celebration purposes) on July 24, which is the day that we had Bayley spayed.

So, if we were to do that whole, "One year ago today" thing, last year a week ago, Bayley was chewing on everything in the house, chasing bugs religiously, and urinating everywhere. She had a really great reason for it though, since she was in heat.

This year, Bayley decided to remind us of what that week was like. Over the past week, Bayley has chewed up 2 large pieces of plastic, several Kleenox, multiple pieces of paper, and has struggled greatly in the obedience department. I assumed she just needed some additional exercise since we have been so busy recently that we have not had a chance to go to the dog park with her. So, we have began playing with her duck outside with her more and have tried to be more diligent with walking her. Even so, Bayley has been full of energy and disobedience!

An aside, I have become more and more convinced that there is nothing that releases Bayley's energy like the dog park. I think the dog park gives her such a great chance to socialize with people and dogs alike as well as track around and so, if she has gone for more than a week without going to the dog park, we see some difficulties in obedience start to emerge.

So, on Sunday evening, in celebration of Bayley's birthday, my husband and I (or mostly just I) sang Bayley Happy Birthday and gave her a yummy dehydrated chicken tender. We (or I) then gave her a new stuffed animal, a rabbit, and ran around the house playing for about 15 minutes. Now, if I have never mentioned this before, Bayley LOVES her stuffed animals. However, once she senses any weakness in them, she kills them. Apparently, and much to my dismay, the rabbit must have been quite weak because within 15 minutes of receiving the toy, she disemboweled it. Sad day for the rabbit.

Then, we went to bed. Bayley came and slept in the bed with us as she usually does. I had to go on a crisis call and came home at 5 AM. I climbed into the bed so thankful to finally be able to get into my bed and sleep for at least a few hours before heading to work. And, upon climbing into bed, I immediately jumped out of bed again! The bed was soaked.

Yep, you guessed it. Bayley's birthday present to her mom and dad was to pee in the bed. Guess she wanted to remind us of her first birthday.

If this is how Bayley celebrates birthdays, maybe we'll stick to celebrating adoption day instead.