Heart Like a Dog

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

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K-9 Kamp Update

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K-9 Kamp Kounselor Delilah here to help keep you motivated and fill you in on some of the things we’ve been doing to keep this first week of K-9 Kamp F-U-N.

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We love to take advantage of the woods right at the top of our street.  It’s a great place to have fun.  In fact, one of the first days of Kamp, Sampson and I got to chase a squirrel!

Here’s what happened.

Before I had a chance to leash The Mama up, a squirrel dashed across my path.

Without a thought for what poor Mama might do, off I went with Sampson right behind me.

The tree rat dashed into the woods and turned left, but he couldn’t get away from me, I was in hot pursuit!

The Mama meanwhile was shouting and yelling and Sampson went back to comfort her.  Meanwhile, I kept on going. The squirrel must have been scared for his life because he ran towards one of the houses that sits on the edge of the woods looking for asylum.

Ah ha!  Here’s my chance, I made the turn for the house, thinking I could pin him down there.

All of a sudden I heard the Mama, “Delilah, NO!”  I stopped for a second and thought the poor thing, she’s afraid to walk without me.  My second thought was, what a party pooper.

No worries, the are plenty of fun things I can find to do in the woods.

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Someone has stacked a bunch of logs on either side of a large tree across one of our trails.   This is a great challenge for us.  We can either jump clear over the pile or climb the logs.  This kind of exercising helps keep the muscles in our back legs toned and strong as well as helping us with balance.

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We also use other trees to climb over.

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Or to go under. (Oops, The Mama is not fast enough to snap me!)

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I decided it was time to let The Mama try rock climbing.  Rock climbing/walking is another good exercise for balance and toning. The poor Mama, it was raining that day and she slipped.  I coaxed and wheedled and even dangled an M&M in front of her, but I couldn’t get her to try again.

I’m so glad we are participating in K-9 Kamp because the Mama is severely out of shape.  I’ve tried these past three years to help her, but despite my best efforts, she still can’t make it up the hill by herself.  You try dragging 140+  of weight behind you, all the while listening to this:

“I can’t breathe.”

“AH my thighs, my thighs, they’re burning!”

And silly phrases like, “Oh my Dog I’m so tired, why can’t this field be full of poppies?”

The Mama calls it torture.

I call it weight resistance training.

Eh, some folks say TO-MAY-TOE and some say TO-MA-TOE.

How are you all doing with your K-9 Kamp challenge?  Do you need any tips or motivation?  Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll share some fun things to do inside for those like us who are being challenged by daylight hours and weather.

This is the K-9 Kamp Blog Hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Peggy’s Pet Place.

Pumpkin Plumpies

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My last set of Pumpkin Patties were such a big hit with my pups, I decided to try the entire recipe.  This time it’s called Pumpkin Plumpies because…..well because I didn’t change anything, and it’s not my recipe at all, it came from a woman named Pam.  That’s all I know, is her first name, Pam.  And that she has a chocolate lab named Amelia and a Corgi named Morgan and she makes her own Irish Cream whiskey (why oh why didn’t I get THAT recipe instead of this one?)

With my last set of cookies I indicated they were all different sizes and Jodi Chick reminded me about the cookie scoop, which as it turns out, made these cookies a little too big.  But neither of the dogs in my house complained.

I tried using a potato masher to give the cookies a little design, (siriusly, have you seen Jodi’s cookies?  She has a way better presentation than I do.) But there was so much dough that the masher stuck to it.

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I finished off the cookies using the scoop, but I reverted to using my hands to flatten them out.

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This worked out very nicely as the thinner cookie baked really crisp.  In fact, to me they seemed more like crackers.

Pumpkin Plumpies:

1 1/2 cups of oat flour
1 1/2 cups of brown rice flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
3/4 cup pumpkin (I used canned.)
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons of applesauce
 

Mix all ingredients together to form a stiff dough.  Form by teaspoon drop or cookie scoop and place on ungreased baking sheet.  They do not spread, so if you want to flatten them, go for it!  (I think they might even be crispier and crunchier if you rolled them.)

Bake at 350º for 18 to 22 minutes.  My recipe says until they are golden brown, but mine never browned. Store in the refrigerator.

Of course I had to humanize it, so I added some M&M’s to a couple.

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The M&M’s did the trick in terms of providing the right amount of sweetness, as these cookies have no sweeteners. And they were definitely good warm!

I also thought perhaps a maple icing might be nice.  So I took some confectioner’s sugar (about 1/4 cup) along with a bit of maple syrup (little drizzles at a time until the icing is the consistency you want it to be.)

I didn’t care for the icing but I think that had more to do with the brand of confectioner’s sugar I used than anything else.  So I took a jar of Monkey Butter out of the fridge and plopped a dollop of that on.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.  It was da bomb!

Here is the recipe I used for the Monkey Butter. (Canning note:  Don’t panic if you don’t have a hot water bath, stick your jars in the dishwasher and run your cycle without detergent so the jars are hot.  Put a washcloth or another piece of material in the bottom of a large pan of water.  Get your water up to boiling and set your jars of MB on the material.  You should be able to process them for 15 minutes without them breaking.  This is what I did with my Caramel Apple jam on Sunday.)

These continue to be a HUGE hit with my dogs.  They absolutely love them! Have you baked for your dog? Are you like me, determined to make something you BOTH can eat?

Of Chipmunks, Reflections and Food

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Delilah’s a lab which means she’s highly motivated by food.  One might even say obsessed based upon her dedication to us whenever food is involved.

She’s also obsessed with reflections on the ceiling.  As the sun makes its way across the sky, it shines in through various windows in our house.  All of a sudden Delilah will start jumping around, looking up at the ceiling and barking.  That’s when you know you left something out that is catching her eye.

In fact, we can’t eat at our dining room table because the light shines on the silverware creating a reflection and Delilah starts her antics.  It’s a miserable meal time for everyone.

Yesterday I noticed she has a new obsession.

Chipmunks.

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She literally sat at this door for hours, on the watch for chipmunks.  I think her obsession for chipmunks actually outweighs her obsession for food.

How do I know?

I spent most of yesterday afternoon in the kitchen making jam, while Delilah sat at the door watching chipmunks.  I actually peeled and quartered apples without having to tell her to back off.

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At one point I walked over to her and she had a big drool hanging from her mouth.

Truth be told, this obsession has me a little worried.  I can work around her food obsession, I can move things when the light reflects on them, but until we get rid of the chipmunks in our yard, there’s nothing I can do about this.

I’m wondering if anyone else has a dog with obsessions and what you do to manage that.

I will have you
Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly
A wild butterfly
I will collect you and capture you (Animotion – 1984)

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