Today is Pearl's birthday. She's approximately three.

She has enjoyed a few special dessert items after meals yesterday and today. Maggie gets her share of the snack loot, which is only fair. Here, they're each presented with half of a Boxer Brownie, a favorite from Three Dog Bakery.

That's nice, but Pearl's favorite thing has been finally getting her presents from Grandma out of the front closet.

My parents came to visit last month and brought Pearl a couple of toys for her birthday. The gift bag was on the floor in the guest room, and Pearl nosed around in there one morning. She found something she liked: a stuffed flamingo with rope legs. When she saw it, you could read her mind. "It has stuffing and rope? Sweet!"

We moved the package to the front closet and made her wait until her birthday. Every time we've opened the front closet since then, she has run over, stared at the top shelf, and pouted.

But yesterday was finally the day:

Floyd the Flamingo stopped squeaking and had stuffing coming out of his side only five minutes later. That's about average.

Pearl's looking sharp in her new blue collar (which she obviously needed, judging from these pictures,) and she had two good belly rub sessions this morning from both Julie and me.

It's a dog's life.