Night and Day

Hi Everybody,
Did you eclipse today? We did.

Mom was too cheap to buy those special glasses to look at the sun so last night Dad made himself a contraption from a cardboard box. But Mom heard that you could just look under a tree and see the shadows so that's what she did.

We have a couple of big oak trees in the back yard. Here's the shadow of the eclipse on the a piece of cardboard under the tree.

 Here's the eclipse shadows on the fence.

And we like this one best. It's the eclipse shadows in our little wading pool.

Mom was disappointed that it didn't get as dark as she expected. She wanted to see how we reacted to darkness in the daytime. But we just howled a lot because she and Dad were in the back yard without us.

 Now everything is back to normal and the flowers are happy. We're happy too because we each got an extra cookie just because it's Eclipse Day.
Your pal, Fudge

Cooking With Fudge

Hi Everybody,
Today I thought I'd share with you a super easy recipe for peanut butter cookies. Mom has made these a lot of times lately, they're that easy. 

 There are only four ingredients in these cookies, but when they're all cooked and cooled, they are so delicious. All you need is rolled oats, peanut butter, flour and water. That's it.

Tie on your apron, grab a big bowl and here's what you do.

2 cups of flour
1 cup of rolled oats
1/3 cup of peanut butter
1 1/4 cups of hot water

Put them all together in the bowl and mix them up. Then roll out the dough on a floured surface and if your peeps are into it, they can cut out fancy little shapes. Mom just cuts little squares with the pizza cutter. My only complaint is that she makes them too little.

Bake them on a lightly greased pan at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Let them cool and taste them. Yummm.....

What are you waiting for? Drag your peeps into the kitchen and get started. Then let me know how you like them.

It Works!!! # Chewy Influencer

When Samba's puppies were four weeks old, they moved into a pen in the kitchen and I began their introduction to noise. I kept a TV on a lot of the time and I clanged pots and pans and ran the dish washer and the blender and anything else I could think of to accustom them to household noises.

Then at five weeks they started going into a pen in the garage when Rob worked at his projects using hammers and power tools. They learned to sleep thru all the racket and they never showed fear at loud noises, even thunder.

Then a few years ago that changed. Several of them started becoming anxious during thunder storms and especially at the sound of fireworks. Now Mackey is uneasy during thunder storms and Sebastian, Lola and Norma Jean show fear. Fireworks get all of them upset.

Norma Jean seems to be the worst. At the first sound of thunder, she climbs on my lap and starts clawing at me. I've tried taking her to the basement, keeping the room dark and playing loud music, but nothing distracts her.

When Chewy offered Nutramax Cosequin Calm chewable tablets for review this month, I decided to try them. I didn't really expect them to work, but what did we have to lose?

They arrived on Thursday and on Saturday morning I heard a distant rumble of thunder. I gave Norma Jean three of the cute little bone shaped tablets and she chewed them right up, so they must taste pretty good.

We didn't have long to wait to test them. The storms moved in quickly and lasted all day, with lots of thunder and torrential rains. And what happened with Norma Jean?

She sauntered over to her pillow and laid down for a nap. Neither Rob nor I could believe it. She was relaxed, not panting, pacing and drooling. She didn't try to climb on us or claw at us.

These things worked!!!!

Just as a final test, that night there was a big fireworks show to end the county fair. It's just a couple miles from here and we heard the booming for about an hour. The Calm was wearing off by then, but Norma Jean still didn't go crazy. She laid on her pillow looking around and panting a little. It was still a good reaction for her.

If your dog has a noise phobia you might want to try Nutramax Cosequin Calm. I don't guarantee the results because every dog is different, but these helped Norma Jean enormously and we'll be using them again next time a storm comes by. The key ingredients are L-theanine, magnolia and phellodrendron extracts.

Chewy sent us a box of Cosequin Calm at no expense to us in exchange for our honest review.

A Most Wonderful Mistake #Chewy Influencer

When Dr B called to tell me that Fudge no longer was positive for e-coli, we had a long talk about the boy. Fudge had been off his Rimadyl while he was taking antibiotics and after three rounds of antibiotics, he was really showing distinct signs of pain. Not only did he need help on stairs, but he was having trouble just walking across the room.

Dr B said to restart his Rimadyl and since we prefer to use natural methods when possible, he suggested increasing his glucosamine chondroitin, and continuing tumeric. He said the most important thing is to flood him with Omega 3s.

So now Fudge takes his fish oil capsules after breakfast and before bed, but he also gets several as treats throughout the day. He chews them up like candy.

Besides fish oil caps, Dr B suggested giving him either salmon or sardines several times a week. For years we're given the dogs sardines weekly, but now he says Fudge can have them more often. I had used my last can of sardines the night before, so I added them to my grocery list.

Then the mistake happened.

My Chewy review items arrived that afternoon and beside the two items I had selected there was an extra. It had not been among the choices offered but someone at the warehouse had by mistake added a case of Tiki Cat Sardine Cutlets to our box.

Never mind that these say Cat or show a cat on the can. Sardines are sardines and they are the absolute favorite food of my dogs, even Sydney and Sebastian.

These are wild caught sardines, fins and tails removed, then sliced. They're cooked in a both with vegetable gums, sunflower oil and vitamins added.

My dogs were delighted with this special surprise and so was I. Thank you Chewy. If you had to make a mistake, this was the perfect one to make.

Chewy sent us this absolutely delicious and nourishing case of Tiki Cat Sardine Cutlets at no cost to us. Although it was an error on their part, we appreciate it and have given our honest review.

Break Time

After cleaning out some old file boxes, we had a surplus of ratty old file folders. I reuse the ones that are in good condition but some of these had been reused several times already. So what do we do with ratty old folders? Make UFOs, of course. I hesitate to call them paper airplanes because they were sort of free form flying missiles.

Rob did the folding, then we all went into the yard to see if they would fly. The answer was poorly, but that was OK with the pack. Several of the dogs gave chase at first, but the older ones soon grew tired of it. Not Mackey.

Mackey chased each and every plane.

 Then after bringing them back up the hill, she discovered the best part.... shredding them.

Sydney thought that looked like a good idea.

Even Bailey couldn't resist the thrill of ripping something into little pieces.

Sebastian gave us the look. It said "you can't possibly expect me to chase those things".

It wasn't as much fun as when the Porties were little, but at least Mackey enjoyed the activity.

Mackey is only four years old, but she's become very gray. We think it's due to her seizures. Syd doesn't show nearly as much gray.

This Is Just A Test # Chewy Influencer

Don't you hate when those tests come on television and the high pitched scream almost breaks your eardrums? "This is only a test."  So why do you have to make it so loud? Anyway, that has absolutely nothing to do with this post. Today we decided to try our second Chewy selection for this month.

This month we're really being adventurous. Our first review was vegan and now we're trying Nutro Kitchen Classics Premium Loaf Variety Pack. This contains two different flavors. Half the variety pack is Slow Cooked Chicken, Brown Rice and Oatmeal Dinner. We had that one a couple days ago and it was very well received. I can recommend this food.

Tonight we had Grass Fed Lamb and Brown Rice Dinner. I don't feed lamb to my dogs. This is the first time ever and when the other two cans are gone, they will most probably never have it again. It's just a personal thing, Rob and I don't eat lamb and none of our animals do either. I thought long and hard before choosing this.

That said, the food looked good, as good as any pate style dog food does. It didn't smell bad and it mixed easily into their kibble.

 As you can see, my girls thought t was an excellent choice.

 Nutro Kitchen Classics come in other flavors, rustic chicken and veggies; turkey, rice and veggies; and steamed fish and sweet potato, so if you'd like to try it and have an aversion to one of the ingredients, there are other choices available. As far as I can tell the variety pack comes only in chicken and lamb.

Now for the good part, there are no artificial colors, flavors or preservative. The food is made in the USA and the meat is the first ingredient. I have no problem with the chicken food and my vet has often mentioned feeding lamb to my boys because of their stomach problems. This is purely a personal thing.

Chewy sent us a variety pack at no charge in exchange for our honest review. I would buy the kitchen classics again in another flavor. We're still a no lamb family.

Eat Those Veggies # Chewy Influencer

This month we decided to try something a little different, so I selected Halo Vegan Garden Medley Canned Dog Food as one of our review choices from Chewy. I have mixed feelings about this food and I'll explain.

I do believe in feeding fruits and veggies to my dogs. I think they get a nice mix of vitamins and other benefits from eating veggies. When my pups were little I gave them cold baby carrots to chew on. They loved them and the cold helped sooth their gums when they were teething. I credit those carrots for saving the legs of my chairs as well as my ankles from those sharp little teeth.

When they were a little older we used carrots and apple chunks as their afternoon snacks. As they grew we started giving them other veggies and they now love broccoli,

green beans,

spinach and Brussels sprouts. Whatever veggies we have, they share.

Sebastian came to us already an adult and had never eaten veggies. It took awhile to introduce them to him and today he loves them almost as much as the others, except for carrots. He's never really learned to like carrots, though he sometimes takes them to please me.

I knew the dogs would probably like the Halo Vegan Garden Medley and I was right. It doesn't look as I expected, it's a pate that I mix with their kibble. I told them they were getting salad with their dinner.

 It's made of vegetable broth, chickpeas, potatoes, pea protein, carrots, olive oil, peas, spinach, dandelion greens and lots of vitamins and minerals.  My dogs all liked it.

 I'm not really sure why anyone would buy vegan dog food unless their dog had a severe meat allergy or some other health issue. If you can't give your dog fresh veggies or he refuses to eat them, this might be a solution.

We've tried Halo products in the past and I like them. I don't think, however, that I would buy this particular food again unless one of my dogs was ill and needed a special veggie diet. It's a good product, but I prefer to feed fresh vegetables.

One other thing to mention, we learned during the evening that veggie farts are just as bad as fish farts.

Chewy provided us with a case of Halo Vegan Medley at no cost to us in exchange for our honest review.