7 years of Uli

Today we celebrate 7 years of Uli. When I found him they told me that he was born "sometime around the first of the year" so January 1 became the day to celebrate the dog who spends most of his day napping. The plan was to take him to the park early in the morning to play ball until he had enough but we woke up to heavy rain and decided to distract him with an extra delicious breakfast. I tried to keep him up until midnight last night but when I realized it was 12:05 and he was fast asleep, I gently scratched him behind the ears and when he woke up, I wished him a very happy birthday. He yawned, stretched and then went back to sleep. A little bit happier, I think.

It's kind of shocking to see him tire out while playing ball. I never, ever thought that he would ever want to take a break. As we discussed earlier, he loves loves loves to play ball. Even on the super hot days of his youth he would take a break in the shade and then bring the ball back into play after a short break. These days, he will go for 10 maybe 15 minutes and then he will flop down and pant. He'll get back up for more but he takes lots of breaks and it's probably best to call it after a few self-imposed breaks. You can tell when he's about to flop down because the first thing he does is to take the long way back to the ball-throwers, and he'll look around to see what else is going on in the park and then he'll stop about 20 feet away rather than the standard 5 foot ball-dropping distance. Flop!

These aren't his birthday photos (rain, rain) but they are from a few weeks ago. Happy Birthday Uli!

By the way, I am trying to figure out what is going on with the font in these postings. I hope to achieve font continuity for all posts.