happy b-day, budnik!

today, i believe, is lil’ dude’s first birthday!

it’s weird – i got him from a guy in kyle who said a friend of his was a breeder and he got him as a birthday gift, but because he was being stop-watched (i think that’s the term for being called back into active military duty after they tell you that you’re done) so he had to get rid of him. at the time he was six weeks old (or so he claimed – i thought it was odd the “friend of the breeder” didn’t know the actual birthday of his own pup) but what WAS obvious was either he had been weened too early (at six weeks he should JUST be leaving his mom, whereas the guy i got him from said he’d had him for two weeks already) and he was either the runt of the litter OR he was severely malnourished…possibly both.

he weighed only seven pounds, and looked like this:

now a year old, he weighs in at seventy-one pounds of solid muscle, and looks more like this:

(in truth this pic is a few months old, but he basically looks the same and for some reason won’t sit still enough for me to get a newer pic)

so, happy b-day lil’ dude! hope it’s the first of many!