Celebrating our Dog's Birthday with a DIY Cake from PawCulture and a Party

While many associate the month of February with Valentine’s Day, I associate it with love for a different reason. Yoda turns three on February 13th. He is the embodiment of love, so it’s only fitting that he blessed the universe with his arrival the day before Valentine’s Day. Please join me as I share a bit about how Yoda has blessed our lives while we prepare to celebrate his birthday with the help of a homemade cake with a recipe from PawCulture™.

This post is sponsored by PawCulture™ and the BlogPaws® Pet Influencer Network™. I am being compensated to help share PawCulture but we only share information we feel is relevant to our readers. PawCulture is not responsible for the content of this article.

Sixteen years ago, I was a college freshman (typing that makes me feel old, but I’m not going to dwell on that). I was a residential student on a campus in Connecticut. One of my roommates had introduced me to a cute boy on this magical piece of technology called Instant Messenger (again, feeling old as I type). We had grown smitten with each other, but had only met once during winter break. Then, on a cold winter night in February, there was a knock on the dorm room door. A mutual friend had braved the cold for my fella and, shivering, handed me a balloon, a note, and a stuffed Winnie the Pooh Bear. The note simply asked, "Will you be my Valentine?" We’ve been together ever since.

Needless to say, I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for the holiday (that really hadn’t treated me well up to that point) and for Winnie the Pooh. I had always loved Pooh for his embodiment of joy and his ability to see the good in all the characters in his forest home.

Yoda is like our own black and white Boston Terrier version of Winnie the Pooh. He’s filled with fluff, that’s a given. But in his case the fluff isn’t from honey, but from an insatiable love for all the treats. He is kind of round like Pooh. I should try to find a too-small red shirt to put on his barrel chest to illustrate the point.

Besides the outward appearance, Yoda is like Winnie the Pooh because of his character. While he may appear to bumble or seem naive, he can be insightful and quick. He can tell when Bean needs a snuggle or if us humans have had a rough day. For a blorpy fella, he can move much quicker than you may expect! He dashes and hops from couch to couch to show his pure joy when we’re home together and while playing with Bean. What Yoda lacks in intellect (although he’s smarter than he looks), he makes up for in spirit and pure joy. Put simply, he is Pooh and Pooh is Yoda.

It only seems right to celebrate Yoda’s birthday with a celebration befitting of a legendary woodland character. We were inspired to bake him a special birthday cake after having read all about the amazing Peanut Butter Pup cake from PawCulture. If you haven’t heard about PawCulture, I recommend you visit the site. PawCulture helps to celebrate the unbreakable bond between pets and their people. It shares stories, DIY projects, pet rescue stories, pet recipes and pet travel and adventure. Their slogan is "You love your pets. We love your pets, too," and I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting the site ever since I learned about it!

This particular recipe includes ingredients like all-natural peanut butter, apples, plain Greek yogurt and whole wheat flour. For the original post, with recipe and baking instructions, please stop by PawCulture. I am my father’s daughter, which means I did make some recipe changes, I can’t help it it’s in my blood. First, I ground my own peanut butter at Whole Foods since I’m leary of Xylitol being in manufactured peanut butter, even if it’s not listed on the label. Additionally, wherever the recipe called for water, I used home-made chicken stock. Partially because my life is sad and I already had it on hand, but partially because of the added flavor. I can’t vouch for the added flavor though, as I’m not a dog, but it seemed like the right decision to make.

After the cake was made and cooled, it was time for a birthday shindig for our handsome Yoda, the man of the hour. While he didn’t look like he was smiling on the outside, I think he giggled a little like Pooh on the inside, especially when there was singing and cake!

Please join me in wishing our blorpy, farty, goofy clown of a pup the happiest third birthday! May your year to come be filled with belly rubs, couch parkour, naps in the sunlight, and snuggles under the covers. We love you, our Pooh Bear even though you’re filled with fluff.

We would like to thank the folks at PawCulture for inspiring this birthday party with their helpful recipe and other posts. I doubt we would have done this without inspiration from them. Check them out if you haven't yet. Celebrate the unbreakable bond between pets and their people by visiting PawCulture for information, inspiration, entertainment, helpful tips and advice about loving your pet.