Today is Zara’s birthday. Six whole years of loving our sassy Zara! And there’s been a whole lot of love in those six years, a kind of love I never imagined but a kind of love that I am so grateful for. 

I often get asked how we ‘trained’ Zara to be so gentle and kind towards her baby sister Gia, how she tolerates her brother Ollie the cat and how caring she is towards our bunny girls Misty and Clover. And my answer is always the same… we never ‘trained’ Zara to do anything. We simply showered Zara with a whole lot of love and respect and taught her our ways. 

My husband and I had a conversation the other day and I asked him if he thinks Zara would be as gentle, loving, kind and loyal in someone else’s home or is she as amazing as she is because of us and the love we have for our family and each other. His answer to me was that every dog is brought up in a different home and different environment and so their level of love and respect is different. Zara found her way to us for a reason and that reason is so we could show her what our love is and for her to be the best version of herself with us. I was pretty satisfied with that answer…

And so today we celebrate Zara in all her glory… 

Zara’s Pup Cakes

It’s a tradition in our home to make something special for Zara to enjoy on her own so this year baby sis Gia helped make some yummy blueberry birthday pupcakes for our pup 😉 

Ingredients- cake

1/4 cup blueberries (we used fresh but frozen would work too)

1 egg

1/3 cup plain yoghurt (we used plain double thick)

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

Ingredients- icing

3 tbs plain double thick yoghurt

3 tbs plain cream cheese 

*Fresh blueberries to decorate if you want

Directons- cake

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Prepare a cupcake/muffin pan with paper cupcake holders. In a mixing bowl using a whisk or electric beater, mix well the yoghurt, coconut oil and vanilla extract. Then add the flour and baking powder and beat for 2 minutes. Then gently fold in the blueberries using a spoon. Add some blueberry bater to each cupcake holder and bake in the over for +-12 minutes or until cooked through and golden in colour. Once cooked leave the pupcakes to cool down completely before icing and decorating them. 

Directions- Icing

To make the icing beat together the yoghurt and cream cheese until light and fluffy. The spoon onto your pupcakes or pipe the icing. Decorate with blueberries.

Zara’s Presents

Zara also gets some new toys and special things on her birthday and this year baby sis Gia helped me choose some goodies she thought Zara would love. Some of them can be found in our amazon storefront so click here if you would like to shop any and some of them are local South African brands who we love 🙂 

We will be sharing all of Zara’s birthday fun on Instagram so be sure to follow along @stylish_paws

Thank you for enjoying Zara’s 6th birthday with us! 

Thank you for reading.

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