Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

The Fox and the Hounds

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Today we’re joining our friends at 2 Brown Dawgs Blog for the This ‘N That Thursday Blog hop.

 

It’s a little of this and a little of that and everything in between…

 

Courtesy of 2 Brown Dawgs Blog

Courtesy of 2 Brown Dawgs Blog

Alter Egos

Do you have an alter ego?  You know, Superman had Clark Kent, Spiderman had Peter Parker, Ironman had Tony Stark.  Jodi Stone has… well mostly I call her My Inner Bitch (MIB for short.)  It’s the little voice inside my head that says funny shit that sometimes escapes my mouth, she’s also sarcastic and at times can be plain mean.

I try and keep the mean one in check, but sometimes I open my mouth and out she pops.  Ooops!

What the woof are you barking at?

Monday I was prepping to walk the dogs.  This means changing my clothes, loading up my pockets, spraying the dogs etc.  Typically the dogs are wherever I am.  They know they are going on a walk and they’re super excited.

I opened the back door just in case someone couldn’t wait to potty and started about my business.

There was a symphony playing outside.

“Caw, Caw” said the crow.

It was followed by “trk trk trk trk trk trk” or something like a cross between a purr and teeth chattering.

Both dogs bolted for the door.

I put on my sneakers and gathered my things all the while listening to the cacophony of noise.

“Caw, caw, caw”

“Trk trk trk”

“Woof woof!”

Over and over again.

I looked out the door.  The dogs were at the fence intent on something in the neighbor’s yard.

“Caw caw”

“Trk trk trk”

“Woof woof!”

I thought the ‘trk’ sound was the sound a raccoon made, so I thought maybe there’s an injured raccoon outside and the crow is telling it to hurry up and die.

“Caw caw” Hurry up, I want to pick your dead carcass.

“Trk trk trk trk.” Eff off, I’m busy here.

Delilah, “Woof woof!” I’m putting my money on the crow.

Sampson, “Woof woof!” Hurry up and get on with it, we’re getting ready for our walk.

(Okay, so I made that conversation up.)

I walked outside to join the dogs at the fence and look at the dying raccoon.  Except it wasn’t a raccoon!!  It was that wily, sneaky, elusive fox!

Right there in my neighbor’s back yard eating something off the ground.  He turned and looked at me.

Dammit!!  Why didn’t I have my camera?

That’s when MIB spoke up.  Are you dressed for a walk or what?  You’re friggin’ camera is in your back pocket.

What? What?

Damn that bitch was right!  And the little guy was looking right at me smiling for the camera.

Fox Copyright

Don’t be fooled by the blurry photo, that fox is smiling.  His whole face says, “Cheese!”

MIB, “You really need a better camera.”

Me, “Yeah?  Take your show on the road and make some money, then we’ll get a better camera.”

Not the point, the point is it’s a point and shoot.  (God I crack myself up sometimes.) My excuse is I might have been a little shaky, you know from excitement, at actually seeing the fox.  Yeah, that’s it.  So I snapped a couple more.

Fox 2 Copyright

I must have calmed down some, but he also wasn’t looking at the camera either.  Two points to note here:

1) I was surprised by how long his tail was. When looking at the photo on the camera it sort of looks like a kangaroo.  2)  Do you notice how close he is to the neighbor’s deck?  Yes, this is the same neighbor that was concerned because we had a snake in our yard.  Yet she has two small boys and a dog that live here and play in this backyard.

And winner, winner chicken dinner, JoAnn called it!  When I finally got the photo of Delilah lifting her leg JoAnn said, “glad you finally caught it maybe your luck is changing and you will get the fox next.”

Dogs N Paws

Many of you know Lisa Brown from Dogs N Pawz, she’s the creator of Tuesday’s Tails blog hop, the hop that focuses on helping shelter animals find their forever homes.  Last week there was a tragedy at their house and Teddy was hurt, and they lost Phe, and I know Lisa’s really hurting right now so if you could stop by and offer a kind word, I know she’d appreciate it.

Follow-up Friday

Joining me tomorrow for co-hosting duties is the infamous Flea from Jones Natural Chews.  This gal is a riot, so be prepared to laugh.

That’s it for me, many thanks to our friends at the 2 Brown Dawgs Blog.

So I’ve Got This Paypal Button on my Blog

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January - Teach - Tails of Teach

January – Teach – Tails of Teach

 

You remember Teach?  He’s Mr. January in the 2014 Dogs of Blogville Calendar.  You can look at Teach every single day next January when you purchase the Dogs of Blogville Calendar.

Let’s cut right to the chase, you know technology challenges me.  Last year I did the calendars as a combination of e-mails and paypal and a spreadsheet.  This year since we had so many more entries, I anticipate a larger demand for calendars so I looked for an easier way to manage sales.

Last week I threw the plea out on Facebook and Kari sent me a link to a plug in.   Sweet, I downloaded it but that was where I bottomed out.

I curse you plug ins!  And you too widgets!

Enter Jodi Chick.  Dude this Chick is amazing. (he he, pun intended)  I mean with a cool name like Chick and being a female, how could you NOT have fun with it?   Well, she literally took over my computer remotely and told me step-by-step what I needed to do.  When I had finished and installed a Paypal button on my blog, she said “You did it!”

Um….no Jodi.  YOU did it.  If it wasn’t for her, I’d still be sitting on Paypal trying to figure out what category my blog fit into.

So I’ve got this Paypal button on my blog.

Because I anticipate selling more calendars than we sold last year, I opened a business account with Paypal.  This was to make sure Paypal didn’t get snarky and shut me off at a certain amount of sales. The trouble is the business account charges, and I want to make sure we get as much as we can for Benny, so the calendars are $21.00 each.  BUT that includes shipping and tax and everything else.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, if you can consolidate orders, we will realize a bigger profit which means more money for Benny.

I placed the Paypal button in the upper right side of the blog just under the subscriptions link.  You can use either your Paypal account or a major credit card, if that’s easier.  If for some reason Paypal or credit card doesn’t work for you, e-mail me at stone.jodi@ymail.com and we’ll figure something out.

Since I’m not sure how Paypal notifies me I’ll somehow be verifying with people who place orders that their orders are correct.  If Paypal includes an e-mail that would be great, if not I will try and contact you via your blog and if that doesn’t work, I’ll run a post on the first Saturday in October listing all the people who ordered.  I will also order a few extra calendars just in case.

I’m probably making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be, but I’m pretty sure some people wanted calendars last year that didn’t get them. 🙁

I’m going to accept orders from now through the end of September, which still gives us plenty of time to order the calendars and still be able to get them out before the holidays.

Ready or not, here we go!

What’s ‘taters’ precious?

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“What’s ‘taters’ precious?” Gollum asked.

What’s ‘taters’, eh?”, Sam responded, “PO-TA-TOES!  Boil em’, mash em’, stick em’ in a stew.” (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers.)

Poor Samwise, his mind is limited.  There are SO many more things you can do with potatoes!

Since Sampson was diagnosed with another lick granuloma, he’s been on a mess of pills.  Two antibiotics twice a day, two nerve blockers twice a day and a pro-biotic twice a day.   Getting him to take the pills in the evening is easy, he gets ground food and the pills get mixed in.  99 out of 100 times he eats them, on the rare occasions that he doesn’t, I put a bit of yogurt or a raw egg in his bowl on top of the pill and problem solved.

His breakfast is another story entirely.

In the mornings he gets chicken necks and no matter how I arrange them, there’s just no way to hide his pills.  Typically I use peanut butter, to shove the pills in, but I ran out.  So I used sun butter instead, but yesterday morning after one set of pills I ran out of that too.  I had quite a dilemma on my hands.

I dug frantically in the refrigerator, but couldn’t find anything to hide some pills in….until my eyes fell upon the left over boiled salt potatoes.

Why not, I thought.

I took about 1/2 a cup and fork mashed them.

I took about 1/2 a cup and fork mashed them.

To that I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of sour cream.

To that I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of sour cream.

I mixed it just well enough to incorporate the sour cream.

I mixed it just well enough to incorporate the sour cream.

It was a bit on the thick side, which was exactly how I wanted it.

I placed a small bit on a spoon and added the pills.

I placed a small bit on a spoon and added the pills.

I added a bit more potatoes and rolled it into a ball.

I added a bit more potatoes and rolled it into a ball.

It ended up being about the size of a small cocktail meatball.

IMG_5610

I offered it to Mr. Picky who had been sitting there watching me diligently.

Nom, nom all gone.

Nom, nom all gone.

To sum it up, here’s what I did.

1/2 cup boiled salt potatoes

1 to 2 tablespoons of sour cream

Fork mash the potatoes and add sour cream to the required consistency.  It’s that easy. 🙂

WHAT?  Are you saying you don’t know what boiled salt potatoes are?   Holy snap!  They are so easy and so yummy that I normally want to lick my plate.

Okay, okay here’s how you make boiled salt potatoes.

What you need, red potatoes (leave the skin on) salt, butter.

Quarter the potatoes (unless they’re huge, then cut them into decent sized chunks.  I’d say about an inch if you can manage it.)  Cover with cold water and add about 1/4 cup of salt for every 3 or 4 medium sized potatoes.  Cook until they are tender, but not too much, you don’t want these babies disintegrating.

Once they’re tender, drain the potatoes and place them back in the pan, with about 1/2 a stick of butter for every 3 or 4 medium sized potatoes  (this is key, you will not get the same results if you use margarine or Brummel or any other type of butter replacement.)  Once the butter has melted, give them a stir and then shove those suckers into your mouth as fast as you can.

You may want to wear some loose clothes too, because if they’re anywhere near as popular at your house as they are at mine, you might have to wrestle someone for seconds and that’s hard to do in tight pants.

Have you ever had to be creative in getting pills into your pet?  What are your secrets?

If you’d like some great recipe ideas for dog treats, head on over to Kol’s Notes, Koly’s Mama always has something tasty on the menu, today it’s Autumn Gold Gluten Free Dog Treats.  And this is the Tasty Tuesday blog hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever.

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