Layla's One Year Gotcha-Versary!

I will start off by saying that yes this post will probably just confirm the fact that I'm a crazy dog lady, and completely in love with my dog. I make no excuses because she makes me happy!

BUT, I present my first argument. 

I mean, look at that face! How could you not love a loveable goof like that?! This was from the other morning when she didn't want to get her lazy butt out of bed. We all have those days.

Secondly, she is the world's best cuddler. 

This is all 65 pounds of my little baby trying to sleep on my chest like she did when she was a teeny tiny puppy. The cutest part isn't pictured but she'll snuggle her nose under my chin, and my heart just melts. 

In all seriousness, though, I believe that pets and animals of all kinds can truly bring joy and happiness to a person's life. I am a total animal lover, and a house never feels like a home without a furry four-legged friend! I love cats but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm not more of a dog person. Dogs will always be my favorite! But, I'll take a cat if I can't have a dog. As you can see I have both :) that's Roosevelt in the picture and he probably acts more like a dog than a cat anyway!

Layla has brought so much joy to our home, and has played an important role in helping my mom to recover. She's great company for my mom during the day when no one else is home, and not to mention a good snuggle buddy! This dog has SO MUCH love to give, and I'll always be grateful that she came to our family.

Even though she kicks me in her sleep, tries to steal my socks, and is a total little weirdo, I couldn't ask for a better dog! She is always by my side, loyal and true, and a daily example of unconditional love.

So, we decided to show her how much we appreciate her this past weekend! It was her One Year Gotcha-versary (a name that I came up with after combining anniversary with a gotcha day) on Saturday. We picked the little bugger up on February 7th, 2014 when she was just 2 months old!

Just a friendly reminder that THIS IS HOW CUTE SHE WAS <3

Althoughhhhh, she's still pretty darn cute...

Since she's a little spoiled (within reason, I promise!) I wanted to make her pupcakes which are just cupcakes for dogs. I did some Pinteresting as usual and found this recipe here!

The recipe was super simple and included normal ingredients that you're always bound to have on hand. Truth be told, I wasn't going to go that much out of my way, and try to track down ingredients for these pupcakes that weren't already in my pantry. So I'm not that much of a crazy dog lady, right?

I did let her lick the spoon though....but that's always the best part! 

I actually did try it (before Layla did) because I was just curious. Hannah and I were laughing because she asked me what they tasted like and my answer was "like peanut butter apple sauce with a hint of whole wheat flour", aaaaand that's it in a nutshell!

I halved the recipe because Layla certainly did not need 6 servings! 

I also have a confession that I cheated a bit, and didn't use the recipe for the icing to go with these. We had some cool whip in the fridge and I figured what the heck. Call me a bad dog owner for allowing her to have people food every once in a while or not feeding my dog only 100% organic/natural/fresh-from-the-farm foods. Layla likes to follow the 80/20 rule too ;) 

But seriously, she's had it before and loves it. Obviously I would never feed her anything that is actually toxic to dogs (don't worry I've done my research), but she has had people food before which is mostly just when food falls on the floor! She's our little portable hoover vacuum! 

So I put a little dollop on top of one of the pupcakes in place of icing! I only did this because I know she's had it before, and handled it just fine. 

As usual, she was my good girl and waited for her cue that she could dig in. 

As you can tell from her expression, she was pretty much done with the photo shoot and fed up waiting for my cue. 

I let her lick off the cool whip first, and then took the pupcake out of the wrapper so she wouldn't accidentally eat any of the paper. A very real possibility as she devoured the whole thing! 

And then looked around to say as if "sooo where's the rest?!" I let the first one settle in her stomach to make sure it went down okay, and then I gave her half of a second one plain a few hours later. She still has one left over today which will be her dessert tonight! 

All-in-all it was a success, and I can't wait to spend many more years with the goofball!