The Coz-man is 5!!!

You thought this was just your regular old Monday. What you don't know, though, is that today is Cozmo's 5th birthday. We loved him up real good tonight to show him how much he's meant to us since we found him on southwest Iowa farm in 2004.

Still remember the weekend: I drove down to rural Corning on a Saturday after finding Coz and his brothers and sisters in a classified ad in the Des Moines Register. Natalie was working at Mercy then and was on call so she couldn't go because Corning was more than an hour from Des Moines. All the puppies were cute and I took tons of photos of all of them to help Nat and I make a decision. But Coz was the one. He was VERY playful even back then, running around my legs and tripping over my feet since his paws were too big for his body, nipping at my fingers with those sharp puppy teeth the whole time.

I got home and told Nat that we had to go back down the next day to get 'our puppy.' The Coz was the only one that didn't hide next to his owner when I tried to rough house with all of them and, while we considered for a short time the brindle brother, Coz picked us and he was going to be ours.

I read a few days ago that a study found dogs to be as smart as 2-year-old children. I believe it. And they may be even smarter. Coz may be a little crazy around visitors, and that gets annoying, he's been great for us. He learned to sit and shake quickly and was easy to potty train. He even learned the difference between left and right and when he and I used to go on daily bike rides (he'll still run right alongside me) I'd say 'turn left' or 'turn right' and he'd lead me that way. (Yeah, we had a few spills as he learned to run with my bike, but I always managed to dive to the grass instead of landing on the concrete and I avoided any serious injuries.)

He literally was our child before Jasper came along. Now, we have to specify that he's our furry child. And he's J's best buddy. Coz hasn't really grown out of the 'puppy' phase, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

These two photos were taken tonight. Nat and Coz were lying on our bed, watching Jon & Kate or something like that. (He hates those shows as much as I do, but he LOVES the cuddle time.)

We love the Coz-man!