If you know me at all, you know that I have a dog. His name is Hermes and he’s turning 2 years old today! We baked him little pupcakes (cupcakes that dogs can eat) and sang Happy Birthday to him. (This is Serious Business, okay? I don’t even do this much for my own birthday, to be quite honest.) I think I can kind of understand now why parents throw lavish parties for their 1 year old babies when the baby probably wouldn’t remember the party anyways. It’s just Important.
When we first got Hermes, we signed up for the rewards program at Petco and every year on his birthday, we get a pound of treats for free. It lasts for months, especially since he’s such a little puppy. So on Sunday, we dropped him off at the groomers and picked up some treats for him. Today, he’ll get a new Nylabone that we’ve been saving for this very occasion.

We had great success with the pupcakes we made for his first birthday, but I couldn’t remember where we got the recipe, so we tried something new this year. We have a little mini cupcake pan, so they ended up the perfect size for a dog Hermes’ size. The pupcakes turned out a little more bland tasting that I’d have liked; I couldn’t really taste any apple or peanut butter, it was kind of like eating just straight up baked flour and not much else. Not that Hermes minded; he’s pretty food driven like me, and it isn’t like dogs need anything too flavorful to begin with. But I did modify the recipe a little bit and next year I think I’d like to try this instead:
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/2 unsweetened applesauce
- 1/8 cup honey
- 1/4 peanut butter
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1 ripe banana
- Mix ingredients.
- Set oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray a cupcake pan with nonstick spray
- Set little globs of pupcake mix into the pan
- Bake for 15 minutes
- Let cool
- Spread more peanut butter on top


I know I talk a lot about my dog. I’m fairly sure there are many people out there who don’t know anything about me beyond the fact that I have a dog. Sometimes I feel weird about being placed in one box as That Crazy Dog Lady That Talks About Her Dog Way Too MuchTM and nothing else. But then I think about Hermes, and I don’t really care. This dog has been in my life for a year and a half now, and he has saved my life. I’ve been in some really dark mental spaces, and Hermes has helped to pull me out of them. He gives life meaning when it feels like there is none. And he’s also incredibly responsive to tears. He gets concerned when he sees me cry and comes to sit next to me until I feel better. Small things like that can be so powerful when you’re feeling isolated and alone. Life, quite honestly, would probably be very different if I didn’t have him.


So I think it’s okay that people think of me as the Crazy Dog Lady. If all anyone knows about me is my love for dogs, particularly Hermes, I think that would be Okay with me.
Biggie Smalls