Fenced In By Love

Fenced In By Love is about shelters and the wonderful, caring people that run them. They are trying to get the word out this month to everyone far and wide about the good works that shelters do. Wouldn't it be great if all animals had loving homes with families that cared about them? In the world we live in that's still a far off dream. There are far too many homeless dogs and cats roaming the streets and fields wondering if they'll eat again or if they can find a warm dry place to sleep. Think about that in the cold miserable weather we're having lately in many places.

I want to tell you a little about our favorite shelter. It's called Castaway Animal Rescue Effort and it's located here in Springfield.

C.A.R.E. doesn't take surrenders due to space but instead they make visits to the  high-kill shelters in the area and save dogs and cats on death row. Once they're safely in the hands of C.A.R.E. volunteers, they have medical care, good food and a warm place to sleep.

C.A.R.E. has two local adoption centers and also take the animals to various adoption events in the area. Their adoption rate is very high, but none of their rescues will ever have to worry about being homeless again. They have a home for life once they come to C.A.R.E.

We're heading toward spring here in the States and many of us will start plowing thru closets and garages in the yearly rite called 'Spring Housecleaning'. Label a box or shopping bag for your local shelter and as you clean and sort, think about things a shelter can use. It goes way beyond food. Do you have any old collars or leashes lying around that no longer fit or aren't used anymore? What about that toy you bought Rover for his birthday that he refuses to look at.

Do you have some old blankets or throws?  How about those towels you mother in law gave you that are a hideous color and get pushed to the back of the linen closet? A shelter can use all of those. Next time you're at the store and there's a sale on detergent, grab an extra. Shelters do massive amounts of wash every day. They need bleach too.

A lot of us are crafters. We knitters and crocheters all have a skein of yarn that seemed perfect when we bought it,  but we've never found the right project for it. Most of us have lots of little balls of yarn left over from many projects. This year let's try, in between our regular knitting for friends, to use up those leftovers and yucky colored yarns in blankets for shelter animals. It doesn't take much time. They don't care about color or style as long as they have something warm to snuggle into on those long, lonely, scary nights. They can be any size. Cats and dogs come in every size. here are some that I made and donated to C.A.R.E.

You sewers aren't off the hook either. Just this morning I received a mailer from JoAnn Fabrics about a sale on fleece. You can always find a piece of it in the ends bin. Pick some up and sew up some blankets for shelter animals. It takes minutes and means everything to them.

So I am nominating C.A.R.E. for the Fenced In By Love  campaign. If you would like to nominate a shelter go here and read all about it. You can nominate the shelter and or a volunteer. Don't forget that shelters operate on a shoestring and do vast good. Help them out whenever you can and think about things like paper towels and hand sanitizer.

Mostly, don't feel bad for shelter animals. They are the lucky ones. They aren't alone, starving and freezing on the streets. They're on the final step toward finding their forever home.

The Winter Games

Hi Everybody,

Mom and Dad have been spending a lot of time sitting in front of the TV watching other peeps playing in the snow. How silly is that? We have snow here and we'd be happy to play with them, but Mom says it's too cold for her to stand outside and take pictures of us in the snow. Come on, woman, it's great out there, brisk and icy.

Anyway, we wanted to show off some of our best winter sporting events so we convinced her to sit in the nice warm office and post some pictures of us doing our thing. Here they are.

Before we start we have a warm up run to get ready for the competition.

First event is cross country run.

Next we have winter gymnastics. This is very popular.

How about snow angels? Sebastian dominates in this event.

 There's a special junior event called peeps dragging. The little girls excel.

Here we have a popular one, downhill sliding.

Have any of you tried ice chewing? The object is to eat as much ice as you can before Mom calls you inside.

 Finally snow balls.
No Norma Jean, not that kind.

 Morgan wins this event with her impressive collection of snow balls.

Finally one of our favorites, the after game warmup.

Thanks for joining us in our winter games. Now back to the silly TV.

Your pal, Fudge

Umm Umm Good

My dogs love meal times. Tsar was the only picky eater I've ever had, the current pack looks forward to that magic time of day when the bowls come off the shelf. My rule is that unless you're sick or very old like Morgan, breakfast is just plain kibble. I am not a morning person. It's about all I can do to measure kibble into a bowl before my first cup of coffee. Even the dogs know I can't be expected to come up with a tasty topper in the morning. Syd is disappointed about this rule. She'd like something special on her breakfast, but she eats it anyway. Morgan gets  some special canned food to help her choke down that dry garbage we call food.

Dinner is a different story. That's when Good Old Mom  gets creative with tasty tidbits from the kitchen to liven up a dog's outlook on life.

The Whole Dog Journal had a short piece on human foods that were good to add to a dog's food and here's their very short list.
1 Eggs for protein..  I do occasionally scramble eggs for my kids but generally when one is sick and needs pampering.

2.Yogurt for the probiotics....My dogs get yogurt every night before bed. It helps them sleep thru the night. Porties are known to vomit bile during the early morning hours if they don't have a late night snack and we find that yogurt works well.

3. Sardines for the omega 3 fatty acids.... Now you're talking! Sardines are the natural food of Porties. They used to eat them when they worked on the fishing boats before they became household companions. My dogs get sardines weekly and absolutely love them. I try to give them the night before our trash pickup so the empty cans don't hang around. We don't call them 'stinky fish' for nothing.

4. Fruit and Vegetables. They mention blueberries, apples, bananas and melons. Those are covered in yesterday's post. Our dogs get fruit and veggies almost daily. Besides the ones already discussed, my dogs like oranges. I have an orange almost every evening and the dogs each get a section. Tsar used to set his on the floor and roll on it before eating it. It was a bit disgusting but gave his coat a nice smell.

5.  Healthy leftovers but they don't explain what they think is a healthy leftover. I'm guessing it's not pepperoni pizza. We give our dogs shrimp tails and sometimes I'll cook an extra chicken breast to cut up for them.

Our vet has suggested blueberries for their brain health and Brazil nuts because they're a great source of selenium, an antioxidant. He also recommends sweet potatoes for digestive health and when we discussed the soup that I make for them he suggested I alternate between rice and barley. Apparently barley is quite nutritious.

Green beans are a staple if I don't have anything else planned or haven't had time to put something together for them. So with all these healthy food for dinner, we can splurge on a cupcake for birthdays without feeling guilty.

Eat Your Veggies

My dogs love fruits and veggies. They all get introduced to them at a young age. When Samba's puppies were about three weeks old we could feel tooth buds popping up and we started giving them baby carrots to chew on. They used the cold hard carrots  as teethers and it probably saved our hands from many bites from sharp puppy teeth.They still get excited when we take carrots from the refrigerator.

Sebastian was older when he found us, about eighteen months and he'd never eaten fruits or veggies. When we offered them to him, he either turned away or politely took one, then put it down on the floor for someone else to grab. It took a while to get him used to the strange tastes. I started with green beans, putting just one bean on his dinner. He ate around the bean, but after a couple days he tried it. I gradually increased the number of beans on his meal until I noticed that he was eating the beans first before the kibble. He now eats all sorts of fruit and veggies along with the others.

Recently Rob came across an article online called The 10 Healthiest Human Foods For Dogs. Here's what the article had to say.

1 Green Beans- a source of omega 3 fatty acids, vitamins A, C and K, calcium, copper, fiber, folic acid, iron, niacin, manganese, potassium, riboflavin, thiamin and beta carotene.

Wow, my dogs get these several times a week.

2 Cantaloupe - a source of vitamin A, B-6 and C, beta carotene, fiber, folate, niacin and potassium.

Cantaloupe was Bentley's favorite fruit.

3 Spinach - iron

Sorry to say, my dogs have never had spinach, but that's going to change.

4 Apples - antioxidants and vitamin C

One of our favorites.

5 Pumpkin- fiber, vitamin A and antioxidants

My dogs love fresh pumpkin but don't like the canned variety.

6 Sweet Potatoes - Vitamins E, A B-6 and C as well as calcium, iron, folate, potassium, copper, thiamine and iron

We have these often. They're a favorite because of the sweet taste.

7 Blueberries - high levels of resveratrol that fight cancer and heart disease plus tannins to help prevent urinary tract infections

Dr B told us about these long ago to help keep senior moments at bay. Morgan gets fresh ones in the summer and blueberry capsules the rest of the year.

8 Watermelon - Lots of lycopene and vitamins A, B-6 and C plus thiamin

Since Mitch and Maggie introduced us to watermelon several years ago, it's become one of our summertime favorites.

9 - Asparagus - Vitamin K, A, B-1, B-2, C and E along with folate, iron, copper, fiber, manganese and potassium.

This is one of my favorites and Bentley loved it. We don't have it as often as we should but that may change. Most of the dogs like it but it's an acquired taste.

10 - Brussels Sprouts - Vitamins K and G plus manganese, folate, fiber, potassium and Vitamins A, B-1 and B-6

Rob loves brussels sprouts but I don't like them. They taste bitter to me. The few times a year that I fix them I cook them in mustard to disguise the taste, BUT I tried a new recipe this week that cooks them with bacon and bleu cheese. They were actually good and I liked them, even had a second helping. The dogs had them for the first time and liked them. They didn't get the bleu cheese but I mixed them into rice and sweet potato and bacon. Yum!!

OK, I know this is getting really long so I'll quit here. Tomorrow I'll tell you about an article in The Whole Dog Journal that tells us about other good foods to feed our fur kids.