[BARKING]
[CROWD CLAPPING] -Surprise!
- The special one.
- Saying oh, no.
- It's been two years since we got Mack.
It's definitely worth celebrating.
We are in Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary in Mount Juliet.
We take in senior dogs only, ten and up.
When they get here, it's day one.
From there on out, they get to live a happy life here.
[BARKING]
When we got Mack, he was blind.
He had glaucoma.
What happens in dogs with glaucoma
is basically, there's a pressure build up.
The eyes start to really protrude from the face.
And it's very, very painful.
When that started to happen,
we decided to go ahead and get 'em taken out.
You do need to rest a little bit after surgery.
And he was like, "What's rest?"
I think he mighta had more energy afterwards,
because no pain. So he's like, "This is awesome."
"All right, let's go."
A lotta people wouldn't know that he was blind
just by watching him. You wouldn't know it.
We know that he came to us maybe a little less than a senior.
Like, right on the cusp of it.
Maybe at about six or seven.
You couldn't tell him that, though.
He's pretty sure that he's like, six months old.
He's always been sweet, and always been adventurous.
A lotta times at night, when we're putting him to bed,
everyone'll be laying down on their beds.
And Mack will stay up.
And he'll kind of watch over his friends,
make sure that everyone's okay.
Then he'll finally go to sleep.
And it's so funny that he does this,
'cause he doesn't know that he can't watch them.
But he uses his other senses to make sure
everybody's okay, everybody's calm.
And then he'll lay down and go to bed.
We just kind of decided to celebrate that we've had him for so long.
We had to try to figure out what we were gonna do,
and who would be his party guests. Who gets along with Mack well,
and all his bumping around.
So we made a list of
all of his friends.
Went to a local bakery.
They were gracious enough to not only gift us a cake for him,
they tinted it our colors, and they also threw in
two dozen cupcakes to share with all of his friends at his party.
So, we're pretty excited
to see how they react to the cake.
The more streamers, the better.
We got some balloons.
We happened to find a "Happy Anniversary" banner.
We got some bandanas, little party games.
Kind of like a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
It's like a "Pin the badge on Chase from Paw Patrol."
So it's little puppy themes and everything.
Pretty excited to see what ends up happening with it all.
We found him a tuxedo and we thought we'd dress him
to the nines. So we got him a little tuxedo
to put on.
He kind of struts when he's got stuff on.
Yeah, I think he'll have a lot of fun.
[BARKING] - Way to go, Mack!
- Mack, you're cheating.
I think he knew he had a special day.
It was all about him.
He acted like he did.
Especially when they put the little tuxedo on him.
He knew, "Okay."
He knew something was getting ready to happen.
- Mack definitely likes being the center of attention.
He's happy to be there
for anyone who wants to pet him and stuff.
- My wish for Mack is that he finds happiness and joy.
And all kind of friends out there.
Just don't get a tummy ache
from all that cake you ate. [LAUGHTER]
- I almost want to call him, like, our heart and soul.
It's like, when you come to the gardens,
we always want to show off Mack.
Between how soft his fur is,
between his cute little mohawk,
his perseverance, his adventurousness.
He is proof of what we're trying to show the world.
This is what an old dog is like.
It's not the end of their life.
It's just the next chapter.