Happy 11th Birthday To My First Baby!

I’m talking about this baby…

My 4-legged baby, Duke.  Dave and I got him together before we were married.  We drove from Arlington, VA to Luray, VA just to get him.  The breeders convinced us that he would be a “Toy” Rat Terrier and not be any bigger than 5-7 pounds and we’d have to pay $50 extra for him.  Little did we know that he’d balloon up to about 30 pounds!  Since we moved to NC, Duke has been on a strict diet and now weighs about 13 pounds.  Far from being a “Toy” Rat Terrier!

(Excuse the bad picture – Duke looks enormous and Kyle looks Chinese).  The kids adore Duke.  Duke has mixed feelings about the kids.  They torture him on a daily basis, but they always seem to drop food when we’re eating, so Duke can’t totally hate them.  Kids dropping food = Duke’s weight gain = a constant diet for Duke.  Since it was his birthday, we did forgo the diet for the night and treated him to his favorite ice cream…

I’d say he had a pretty good day.  He even had a few bites of macaroni n’ cheese, courtesy of Kyle.

Happy Birthday to my Dukey Lukes!