Happy Birthday Senor Schnoo

It is Jax's 5th birthday today.  We love him very much and are very glad that he is a pary of our family. Here are 5 things that I love about Jax:

1. Jax tolerates anything James can throw (literally) at him. He is often subjected to James' elaborate games of make believe and puts up with being called anything from a Lost Boy to Don Diego. They are good buddies, and I love watching them together.

2. Jax, despite being the smelliest dog in the universe, is a great cuddler. Thankfully Tim takes on most of the cuddling duties at night since I wouldn't really be able to sleep next to him since he smells so bad.

3. Jax loves being around all of us. He loves being at home with me and James, but he really perks up when Tim gets home and we are all together.

4. Jax is very adaptive to our lifestyle. He can be active when we feel like it, and in the winter he can go weeks without a walk when we are feeling lazy. We are kind of deadbeat dog owners that way, but he loves us anyway.

5. Jax has always slept in bed with us, from the day we got him. The exact day we brought James home from the NICU, he started sleeping under the bed. He didn't start sleeping with us again until James moved into his own room. Along these same lines, he used to rip up any stuffed animal he could find to smithereens (including the Tigger I had slept with for like 15 years) as soon as James came along and there were a lot of stuffed things laying around, he stopped doing this. He has never taken or destroyed any of James' toys. I think he is pretty smart.

James isn't the only one who likes the new big boy bed.

In schnoodle news: We spent $500 this week having tests ran on him to figure out why he smells so bad and pukes all the time. The diagnosis was that he vomits a lot and should take a zantac with his meals. I could have made this diagnosis myself and saved the $500 to buy a new living room rug. I made Tim throw away our old one earlier this week because it smelled like dog puke. 

Jax has also lost 3-4 lbs and is no longer morbidly obese. I guess now that James is a little better at feeding himself, Jax isn't getting as much high-fat toddler foods dropped to him. Although today I made James a bowl of cottage cheese for snack and left him to eat it in the kitchen. I left the room and a few minutes later heard James laughing hysterically. I went to see what was so funny and James was flinging his spoon wildly and cottage cheese was all over the walls, window, ceiling and dog.  I assume if I had gotten there earlier it would have been all over the floor too, but Jax took care of that. So, no more unattended cottage cheese eating.

Happy Birthday, Jax. You have made our family more happy, cuddly, loving and stinky. We love you.