Happy Birthday Lentil Bean!

Everyone at Frankie’s Legacy would like to say a massive HAPPY 1^ST BIRTHDAY to Lentil of “My Name Is Lentil” fame! Hope you have a wonderful day and that Mama Bean spoils you absolutely rotten today – you deserve it!

Some of you reading this are probably thinking who on earth Lentil is. Well, Lentil is this little dude here:

Cute huh? I think so. I fell in love with this little guy the very first time I saw him when I came across his facebook page. For Lentil is an “Amassadog” for cleft lip and palate, having been born with one himself. He was tube fed by ‎Lindsay Condefer who adopted him, she had to feed him by tube every few hours night and day. When he was strong enough Lentil had surgery to correct his cleft lip and palate, and he lives a full life with Lindsay.

Every day to over 137,000 followers on his facebook page Lindsay shares Lentil’s antics with the world. She posts photos of him when he wakes up in the mornings and photos of him when he goes to sleep at night. Every day is documented in such detail and I’m addicted to the “My Name Is Lentil” facebook page. Every afternoon I check the page for updates, being in the USA it doesn’t get updated with a good morning message till the afternoon here, but it makes my day every day.

I’ve seen videos of Lentil running in the snow, running through his house with his playmate doggies (or having “zoomies” as his Mama calls them, he sure is one fast dog when he runs around!) and it warms my heart every time I see the little guy having an amazing time despite all he’s been through. Dogs can be born with cleft lips and palates too, and can have surgery to repair them exactly the same as children do. But many are rejected by their mothers, and have to be tube fed, like Lindsay has done with Lentil.

I love seeing updates on Lentil’s pages, one the other day was amazing. It was from a mother of a little girl who had a cleft lip and palate, aged around 4 or 5, and some other kids had been teasing her saying that she “looked different”. Her mother asked her how she felt about that and she said it was okay as “Lentil said it is okay to be different”. That brought a tear to my eye.

Lentil is now raising awareness of cleft lip and palate through being an “Ambassadog” for the condition and if Frankie had lived I would have shown him Lentil as soon as he was old enough to understand when he had his surgeries and told him Lentil says it is okay to be different if he ever became aware that he was different to other kids. Lindsay Condefer is a huge inspiration and I wish there were more like her in the world. She even took in another puppy with a cleft lip and palate recently, who she named Gonzo. Sadly Gonzo didn’t make it and passed away, I was in floods of tears when I read that he’d died on facebook.

You can follow Lentil via these links, I promise that once you hook up to his facebook page, you’ll be just as addicted as I am:

www.facebook.com/mynameislentil
www.mynameislentil.com
www.twitter.com/mynameislentil

So Happy 1^st Birthday Lentil Bean from all of us at Frankie’s Legacy – hope you have an amazing day with lots of zoomies and treats!