Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Alfie, happy birthday to me. I am finally one year old. I don’t feel any different and for that matter I don’t look much different than I did yesterday but I am now a whole year old. My master and mistress rang me first thing this morning and sang to me, to be honest I could have done without such a raucous start to my birthday but they meant well. On the whole it has been a pretty good year and there isn’t very much about it that I would have liked to have done differently. I am sorry I can’t see my mum and brother and sisters today. I wonder how they are celebrating. I just wish I could have my presents now rather than waiting until Wednesday. I thought it might be best not to say too much to the other dogs, I didn’t want them coming up with any ideas that I would not have appreciated. Do dogs do ‘the bumps’?
Now I am a year old I get adult food too. It tastes much the same as the puppy food did but the pieces are bigger and need more crunching before I swallow them. I can still get it all down in a few seconds so it hasn’t added much to the time I need for meals. The worst part is that apparently I am supposed to eat a little less than I have been doing and my mistress has given me a choice. Either I can cut down on the size of my dog food meals, or she will cut out all the little extras that I get through the course of the day. “Are you serious?” I asked. “Really?” I could not believe she would consider cutting my supply of marzipan, Frosties and crisps. Inevitably I plumped for less dog food, although I wasn’t thrilled about that either.