All of you can’t help but know by now -- and maybe are even getting tired of hearing –- about how my dog Ace takes the cake.

But yesterday, he really did -- or at least all of the icing off one side.

It was my birthday cake – chocolate with chocolate icing, but he seems fine. It was decorated, Montana-style, with a plastic horse, a fence, a “Happy Birthday, Cowboy” sign and 24 candles.

Yes, 24. It was, you see, the 24th anniversary of my 30th birthday. That adds up to 54, but 54 candles, in light of Montana’s forest fire problem this summer, might have been hazardous. They had all been lit -- though I didn’t know it -- as soon as my car tires clanked over the cattle guard and crunched along the gravel road, the signal I’m home.

Ace ran out to meet me, and I lingered outside, playing with him. The candles continued to burn, setting the “Happy Birthday, Cowboy” sign on fire. The cake had been extinguished by the time I came inside. We re-lit one of the candle nubs that remained. I blew it out and, leaving the cake on the dining room table, we went out for my birthday steak dinner.

When we returned, Ace bolted out of the house, and didn’t seem to want to go back in – generally a sign that he has done something he’s guilty about. He had carefully removed all the icing from about a third of the cake, which remained right where we left it on the table.

He had shown some restraint – much like he did on his only other chocolate binge (and since chocolate can be toxic for dogs, that’s a good thing.) It was Halloween, just a few weeks after I had adopted him from the city shelter. When I stepped out, he got into the candy bowl, removing, unwrapping and eating only the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The Snickers, Milky Ways, Nestle’s Crunch bars all remained untouched.

What kept him from consuming everything – then and this time – may have been a cue from his body, his sense of right and wrong, or maybe just getting full. I’ll never know.

After some scolding, I still gave him his dinner and a doggie bag of leftovers from the steakhouse. I figured it might help flush anything toxic – did I mention 14 of the 24 candle nubs were gone as well? – out of his system.