Happy Birthday, Clementine and Baloo!

This was a birthday week on November Hill. Baloo Corgi turned 3 years old and Clementine, the lovely, turned 1. Our birthday celebrations for 2019 were very low key, but there are some important birthday years coming up in 2020 so we decided to start in January and celebrate our way through, month by month, in the style we have enjoyed in past years.

I’m going to confess that we had high aspirations for birthday photos. I actually thought we would get a great birthday video of all three canines sitting at the dining table with party hats, awaiting the birthday treats. It would likely have been possible had we done many takes over several hours, but no one wanted to put the dogs through that kind of frustration, so here’s what we got:

You’re going to have to take my word for it that at one point all three dogs did in fact have the party hats on their heads and the boys looked as adorable as does Clem. But golden retrievers are just much more willing to be dressed up than are Corgis, at least in this household, and the point was to celebrate, not torture, so we moved on to the serving of the birthday cookies. 

I will say that it astounds all of us that Bear Corgi, whose birthday is in June, is a senior dog at this point. For so many years he was the young wild one to Kyra’s aging self, but now he is slowing down some and the wild ones are Baloo and Clem.

Life with dogs seems particularly poignant, as their life spans are so much shorter than ours and in dog-loving homes it feels like decades are marked by how old the dogs are, how insane it seems that they could be growing old, and the new young pups that move in to ease the transitions and take over the household. 

Since I got married and had children we have lived with and loved Ron the retired racing greyhound, Chase the loving and loyal Corgi, his sister Kyra who spoiled us with 18 amazing years of bossy Corgi girl love, and now Bear the Corgi fluff-budget, Baloo the Cardigan jumper extraordinaire, and Clementine the ladybird beauty. I can’t think of a better way to mark a lifetime than by the dogs we share it with.

Happy birthday, Baloo! Happy birthday, Clem! We love you and hope for many more parties to come.