Chloe Jo is 12!!

Chloe Joanne Hoden turned 12 on October 27th! We always celebrate her big day...the kids love it and look forward to it. We started off the day just like any other day..Chloe riding in the car with us to school! We snapped a pic before we got in the car and then I ran into the house and came out to see my crew waiting in the car and had to take one more pic even though it's pretty dark. 

This year Max had parkour in the evening, so only the girls got to go to PetCo and help her pick out some treats. She chose a squeaky bird, some raw hide bones and some yummy treats that were on clearance! 

She is such an awesome dog. She still sleeps on the trundle bed with Max, (around 7:30 every night she just gets up and walks upstairs to bed...Chris and I always comment on how lovely it would be if our kids did the same thing!!), loves to go for walks, (hardly needs a leash anymore), rides shotgun nearly every time we leave the house, loves to lick the dishes in the dishwasher, makes a giant mess of her water when she is done drinking, still gets really mad and rips up garbage when we leave her home alone, is not a fan of our neighbor's 10 week old puppy, still digs up the yard whenever she can sneak past Chris's barricades, and pretty much has every person she knows wrapped around her paw! 

Unfortunately with age comes some issues too. She has not been eating very well lately and has been losing weight for the past year or so. I took her into the vet yesterday and she is down about 17 pounds since July 2015. They ran some blood tests and she has some kidney failure. We are hopeful that we can treat it and she will be able to recover enough to live pain free for awhile longer. We switched food to a kidney care food and she's also taking 1/2 of a zantac each day to help with antacid build up. I wish I could report that she loves the new food, but she doesn't, so we'll be heading back to the vet to see what they can do for her next. I know she's hungry because she's a crazy beggar these days, but for some reason is not interested at all in her own food. Other than the food issues/weight loss, you wouldn't be able to tell she's 12. She is still so active, loves people, gets super excited when we say rabbit, squirrel, etc:) 

The best part of having a dog is seeing the kids' love for her grow and grow. They all have such a soft heart for her and hate when she's sad, when we have to leave her or when she gets in trouble. If I ask Max to pick up his socks, he will do it sometime in the following 10 minutes. But if I ask him to let Chloe in/out, feed her, get her water, pet her, etc, he'll drop whatever he is doing and immediately tend to her needs. 

We hope she has many many more days with us and we're going to enjoy every one of them!