A Wintry Mix

Today's post is about a number of things. Some are new items, some are updates.

First, our dear friend Sissy is having serious surgery today. Please send good thoughts and keep those powerful paws crossed for her speedy recovery.

Next, I'd like to acknowledge an award that was given to our blog. We received this honor from two sources, The Five Sibes and from The Op Pack.

Thank you for thinking of us when you handed out this award. We appreciate your friendship. Now I have to tell something about myself that you don't already know.

Although I'm not athletic (never have been), I love hockey and used to have season's tickets and I dated a hockey player for awhile. My favorite pro team is the Montreal Canadiens.

Now to pass it on.
We send this award to Zona and her family. They made an important  announcement over the weekend
We send it to The 4 B's. They are an energetic pack that remind me of my own fur kids.
We also send it to Golden Pines. They have a large pack like ours and do some important rescues.

Next is an update on crafty projects. 2010 was not a very productive year for crafts around here. I blame most of it on my eye surgeries, but some was just plain laziness. I did, however, complete a couple items. I did two sets of Pile-able Pups. They are a Mochi Mochi pattern.

This set was part of my Winter Solstice swap.

This set was a gift to a young friend who has worked hard with her dog this year and accomplished a lot. It was meant as a reward and sign of support. Actually, I stuffed this batch a little too full, so they don't stay stacked by themselves. They are well fed pups.

Finally, we tried a new recipe yesterday. This one was for my "bacon dog" Morgan. As some of my long time readers know, Morgan loves bacon and was at one time almost addicted to it. We had to ease her off the good smelling stuff, but she still gets a piece now and then as a special treat.

Yesterday while waiting for the snow to start (it didn't start till mid morning today), I made some Peanut Butter and Bacon Biscuits. They were from a recipe I found on The Doggy Dessert Chef blog. If you're looking for a yummy treat for your furry friends, that's the place to look.

Once the cookies cooled, the tasters gathered to try them out.

 Everyone got one to see if they were worth making again.

 The reviews were good, so this recipe goes into the book as a winner. Rob said they smelled great and tasted OK. He always tastes the dog's treats. He said they'd go well with a beer.

 The real expert, of course, was Miss Morgan who said they were almost as good as a strip of bacon right off the grill. In case any of you have bacon lovers in your pack, here's the recipe.

    Peanut Butter & Bacon Bites

1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1/2 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons bacon bits
1/2 cup peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Blend all ingredients in a food processor. Form dough into a ball. Roll to  1/4 inch thickness. Cut out with a cookie cutter. Bake on greased cookie sheet for 20 minutes. Let cool. Refrigerate.

A couple notes. I didn't use a food processor. I mixed the dough in a bowl. Be sure your peanut butter is at room temperature. Mine was out of the fridge and it wouldn't mix until I let it sit and relax. After rolling it out I get tired of cutting shapes and the dogs don't care, so I use a pizza cutter to make little squares, just bite size.

Bon appetite!

Snow Creatures

We had a little snow, just a trace, over Christmas. Many parts of the country have gotten heavy snowfalls so far this winter. We've seen pictures of a lot of you playing in the white stuff.

We haven't had enough snow to make a snowman, but I guess some places have.

The more snow you have, the more snowmen you can make.

If you only have a very little snow, you could make some little snow birds.

When we lived in Maryland we had a big snowfall and we got together with our neighbors to make this snow bunny.

That's our neighbor with his little girl and me with Pylon and Bentley.

Portuguese Water Dogs seem to like snow. At least all the ones I've known have liked it. Somewhere I have a picture of Bentley taken the first time he saw snow. He's covered with snowballs. The snow gets stuck in their curls and snowballs form. Of course, I can't find the picture just now, but I did find some other dogs who will demonstrate what I'm talking about.

This one is just starting to form snowballs.

This one has a pretty good collection starting on his legs.

This one may need some help walking to the house.

This one is ready to go inside and melt.

This one is my favorite. This guy had a great time playing in the snow. As soon as all that snow melts, I'll bet he goes out and does it again.

We hope all of you who have snow are having lots of fun with it. We hope we get some soon.

New Toy Report

We've had some very quiet, relaxing days since Christmas. Everyone has been playing with their new toys, so I thought I'd bring you up to date on the fun.

We'll start with the snowman. You remember that Christmas afternoon, he looked like this. His hat and scarf had taken a beating, but he was in pretty good shape.

Now he looks like this. His hat is completely gone and his nose and hand show some wear, but aside from being really dirty (a lot like real snow after a week) he's still in pretty good shape.

The anteater, Morgan's favorite, looked like this on Christmas day.

Today The anteater is missing most of his tail. Morgan doesn't just rip toys apart, she eats them. The tail was eaten and she didn't plan to stop there. I put the anteater up until we can schedule tail surgery .

The hedgehog, the favorite of everyone looks just as it did on Christmas except that it's coat is a little stiff from being slobbered on. There is no visible damage, but he no longer makes pig noises. His noisemaker has been disabled.

Ernie has been played with and carried around a lot, but so far he looks as good as new.

One of the dogs has been lining the large stuffed animals up across the living room each day. I haven't seen who's been doing it, but I suspect either Morgan or Tsar.  Morgan has OCD and Tsar likes a certain order to his surroundings. The others don't seem to care. It's amusing to leave my office in the basement and walk into the living room to see all the fuzzy bodies in a row.

I have a new toy that's been keeping me busy.

This is my new Kindle and I've been spending a lot of time each day with it.

Santa brought Rob this New York City puzzle.

He worked on it all weekend, first putting the base together, then placing each little building in it's proper location.

I like this little Statue of Liberty. Now that it's all together, we've moved it to the library for safe keeping. I guess it's about time to start getting off holiday time and back to a more normal schedule, but it sure has been nice to have a little down time.

New Year's Eve

This is New Year's Eve. Mom was going to post pictures from the New Year's Eve she spent in Russia, but she'll do that another time. Our Mom gets sad on New Year's Eve, so we're all going to do fun things together today and try to stay happy.

Tonight Mom and Dad are staying home with us instead of going out to celebrate. We're all having shrimp. They eat the front part and we dogs eat the tails.

Then, at midnight in New York, where our Mom and Dad are from, when the big ball drops, they'll drink some Champagne. We'll each get a cookie. 

We want to wish all our bloggy friends a very happy 2011. We look forward to seeing all the fun you have in the next year.

The Top Three

Remember the Cabbage Patch dolls and Tickle Me, Elmo? Toy manufacturers and parents are always trying to guess what the most popular toy will be each year.

Well, pet parents do the same thing, and we're wrong just as often as the other type of parents. This year I made my guess and chose this cute little turtle. It's an interactive toy, which appeals to me.

The human sticks the head, tail and legs inside the shell and the dog then enjoys pulling them out. As an added incentive, each appendage has a squeaker.  The manufacturer didn't warn me that I'd break two nails trying to tuck the legs in. What dog wouldn't love this toy? Mine! I don't think it's been touched, even though I've tried showing several of them how much fun it is.

I'll now show you the top three Christmas toys as chosen by my pack of experts.

The third most popular toy was this rather ugly anteater, which I found at the dollar store last summer and tucked away in my gift closet. I felt it was too ugly to send as a gift, so I threw it in the toybox with the other new toys.

This fellow has a stretchy elastic tail, making him a perfect tug toy for two pups to play with together. He also is easy to fling by the tail, so it's good for throwing, chasing and pouncing upon. Morgan, especially, likes this toy and has carried it around all weekend.

The second most popular toy is the little snowman.

This toy is small and very light weight. It has no squeaker, but did have a tasty hat and scarf that were eaten on Christmas morning. The best feature of this toy is that it's so light. Throwing it in the air and catching it is a really fun game that has kept several of them amused for long periods. I discourage throwing toys in the house, but this one won't hurt anything.

Here Sky demonstrates the technique.

Far and away the most popular toy this year was the hedgehog.

This toy has two very desirable qualities. First, it's small enough to fit inside the big mouths of my dogs, so one doesn't know the dog is carrying it. Second, it makes a disgusting pig sound when squeezed. The best game is to come up behind an unsuspecting human and suddenly squeeze the toy hidden inside the big mouth. The human usually jumps upon hearing the disgusting pig noise behind them. This seems to amuse my group and they've all been trying it.

Here Tsar is taking his turn with the hedgehog.

There is great demand for this toy and I predict a short life for the hedgehog. Maybe someday I can convince one of them to play with the turtle.

Santa Came!

Santa came to our house and he brought lots of surprises. This morning when we went outside it was snowing.

We all had breakfast, cranberry nut bagels with cream cheese.

We went out to feed the hungry birds.

Then when we got back inside, Santa had been there and left a bunch of new toys.

Dad opened the toybox and we crowded around to see what was inside.

Here's a short video of us choosing our toys. In the video Mom is saying "No" to Bailey because Bailey was trying to open the packages Santa left for Mom and Dad.

We each got to pick out stuffies and balls and squeaky toys.

Tsar pulled the long ears off this bunny right away.

 Sky picked out a snowman and started tossing it in the air and catching it.

 Then we settled down to play.

 Santa even brought presents for Holly and Cloud, honey seed sticks.

Mom said we had to play quietly, so we did.

After such an exciting morning, we got tired and some of us took naps.

Doesn't it look like we had fun?

 We hope Santa brought you everything you wanted. Merry Christmas!