A man's birthday plans took a turn for the worse after an expensive cake purchased to mark the occasion ended up being destroyed.

Esme McGhee who lives in Hamburg, Germany, shelled out $100 on the locally made cake with a view to surprising her partner on his birthday.

However, when it came time to celebrate his big day, she got an altogether different kind of surprise when she found that three quarters of the cake had already been eaten, with no prizes for guessing who the guilty culprit was.

Though there will be those who claim otherwise, for many Americans it's important for friends and family to acknowledge our birthdays by doing something special.

According to a 2021 survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Evite, 28 percent of respondents expected their partner to do something big for their birthday.

That was what McGhee was planning to do for her partner, but her dog, Kobe, had other ideas.

McGhee adorns Kobe, and she told Newsweek: "Kobe, my poochon, came into my life nearly three years ago—he'll turn 3 this November. He's a playful, friendly dog who loves spending time outdoors, especially running around the field and playing with the local children."

However, her faith in her beloved pet pooch was seriously tested when she returned home one day to discover he had laid waste to the freshly baked and perfectly iced birthday cake.

"We had no idea Kobe would manage to get to it," McGhee said. In time though, they would eventually piece together the chain of events that led to the cake being eaten."

"He slowly moved the box closer to the edge of the surface until it fell," McGhee concluded. "He ended up eating 3/4 of the cake!"

Though it might have taken time to work out how Kobe did it, McGhee didn't need much in the way of detective skills to work out he was the guilty party as a video she shared to TikTok under the handle @esmemcghee4, chronicling the aftermath, showed.

"As soon as we got home, it was clear who the culprit was," she said. "Kobe was blue, and there was cake everywhere."

In the clip, a sheepish looking Kobe can be seen trying to avoid his owner's gaze, all while sporting a decidedly azure mouth.

To cap it all off, that blue food dye ended up lingering for a little while longer after, too. "It took three washes to finally get all the blue dye off of him," McGhee said.

Given the initial outlay it was always unlikely that they would be shelling out on a replacement cake. Instead, McGhee and her partner learned something important.

"We didn't get another cake afterward, but we definitely learned our lesson and now know that Kobe can reach higher surfaces than we thought," McGhee said.