Made Out of Love: the new Honest Kitchen Doggy Cookbook

Outside of training I don't use a ton of treats at our house.  Even when training the dogs usually get a piece of kibble as their treat unless an incentive of something extra yummy is needed.

So I kind of surprised myself when I bought the new Honest Kitchen Cookbook called Made Out of Love by Lucy Postins. But it's not just a book full of treats - there are meal toppers, regular meals, tonic type recipes and then the just plain goodies. And since The Honest Kitchen uses only human grade ingredients and processing facilities, you can share the treats with your dogs, assuming you are up for "Duck Parfait" or "Sardine and Apricot Mush".

Most of the recipes use the different The Honest Kitchen dehydrated foods. I really can't say enough good things about this company or their food and supplements, but I highly recommend you check them out. If you just want to try a recipe and not necessarily buy the whole 3 pound box of dehydrated food, you can buy their trial size boxes that contain about 1 cup of the dehydrated mix and work great for these recipes.

I decided to try the "Dream Drops" recipe. This recipe uses the "Thrive" food but since we were out of the small boxes of Thrive at the store, I went with "Keen" instead and it worked out well.

Gathering the ingredients

Cookie batter

Getting ready for the oven

Dream Drops

1 cup The Honest Kitchen Thrive dehydrated dog food
1/4 cup ham, diced
3 tablespoons sharp cheddar, grated (you can use a different cheese if preferred)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup warm water

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Hydrate the Thrive with the 1 cup of warm water
3. Thoroughly mix the remaining ingredients in to form a batter
4. Spoon the mixture in cherry sized drops on a baking sheet and slightly flatten with a spoon
5. Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes
6. Serve after cooling completely. Drops may be kept in refrigerator in airtight container.

I guarantee you'll get some extra doggy kisses for baking this goodies! If you want to learn more about the cookbook you can find info on The Honest Kitchen recipe page. 

All done and ready for dog tummies!

Transport time!

Tonight's the night! We have 3 new foster dogs arriving and are pretty excited.  Here are the new girls who will be joining the New Rattitude Northwest pack of foster dogs:

Chevette is a little 3 month old tuxedo coated Rat Terrier pup who was found running along the road near one of our CA New Rattitude foster homes. When the family was found they did not want the puppy. Lynn not only took the pup, but is working with her former family to help them find a low cost option to spay and neuter their family dogs since their female 2 yr old Rat Terrier was having litters every 6 months. Chevette will be fostered in Snohomish, WA and you can follow her adventures in foster care in her foster family's blog, doG.

Silver is a one year old girl who weighs about 8-9 pounds. She had the same sad story that most of our foster kiddos have - a stray who ended up in an overcrowded shelter with very little chance of making it out. Thanks to her foster mom who is going into foster overload so Silver could make it out. She'll be fostered in Yakima and you can read more about her in her foster mom's blog, Yapitude in Yakima.

And you already know this gal.  Our sweet foster Salish is finally coming up to join us in Washington. Salish's trip north was put on hold so we could save Apple. She stayed in her temporary foster home until Neah headed to her forever home in Portland. But now Neah is with her new family so we have room for Salish to join us. Salish is about 1 year old and weighs 24 pounds. Read more about Salish, New Rattitude's 1000th foster dog, in this post.

Langley: Putting up with a puppy

Langley's a good boy when it comes to being patient with puppies.  Apple really, really loves to play with him (and steal toys from him) and he does his best to not get fed up. 

 

 

Even when he's ready to stop and do something else, like watch the backyard for squirrels in this case, he'll let her drag him back into a wrestling match.

But everyone has their limit and yesterday the limit was pig theft. Langley had decided to play with a bottle buddy pig toy and  Apple decided to join in and then attempt to steal Langley's pig.  At first he indulged her and tried to chew on the pig while she had the other corner. However, when she tried to steal the pig from him to play with it on her own, he appropriately pinned her, did a little growl and went back to the bacon.

Langley, enjoying his pig toy and a little time off from wrestling

 

Langley, sharing his pig

 

Apple starting to drag the pig away from Langley

It's good to remember that growling isn't always a bad thing. Puppies need to know they don't always get their way and a growl from a grown up dog lets them know when they are pushing things too far.  After the attempted pork robbery, to give Langley a break Apple was put into her crate with another toy and Langley was able to kick back and chew on his pig in peace.

Tug: Downsized

Apple loves to play with both people and other dogs and she is starting to get the hang of how to play tug.  The Bumi toy from West Paw Design's Zogoflex line is a favorite tug toy at our house and thanks to its toughness is yet to be destroyed.

Today she saw Langley and I playing a game of tug and wanted in on the action. The Bumi is almost too big for her little mouth and she gagged a little trying to hold onto it but she wouldn't give up.  Later she managed to steal it from Langley using a nice spin move.

 

Play Time with Apple

Sweet Apple loves to play and one of her favorite games, next to growly wrestling, is chasing her favorite ball. I bet you can't watch this video without a huge smile breaking across your face! Everything about Apple is cuteness overload.

New "Best Antler Ever!"

When Neah/Poppy moved to her new house, we sent her with "the BEST ANTLER EVER" that had achieved that status only because she chose it to chew on and every other dog in the house immediately thought that she must know something about it that they didn't.

We were getting low on antlers and it just so happens that we got a new shipment at work on Friday.  And, it just so happens that there were three forked antlers in that shipment.  So I bought those antlers and now we have a new "BEST ANTLER EVER" 

Since Langley doesn't have Poppy around to wrestle with he has plenty of time on his hands and this evening he spent a lot of that time breaking in the new antlers. In a few days we'll have a new foster arriving so until then hopefully the antlers will stay interesting.

 

 

Neah's New Life

Neah, now known as Poppy, was adopted about a week ago but since her new parents were dogsitting for a friend we all thought the easiest adjustment would be to wait until that dog left before she came home. Well, the time has come and she's going to her new home today.

We're all definitely going to miss this sweet girl but I think Langley is going to miss her most of all. She has been so wonderful for him - providing him with the exercise of lots of wrestling, but also confident enough to let him know when she doesn't appreciate his rudeness, and tough enough that she isn't afraid of his rough play. She's one of those amazing dogs who has great social skills and can match her play to whatever dog she's with. She respected old Tilly when Tilly said she didn't want to play (with typical Tilly grumbling) and she knows to play much more gently with 6 pound puppy Apple than she does with 18 pound wild man, Langley. She reminds me of a young version of Fern - another amazing dog that I fostered - and I'm sure she is going to mature into as spectacular a girl as Fern is.

Neah showing Langley her tough wrestling moves

 

Langley telling Neah to "bring it on!"

 

Neah being a good friend and helping Langley remove his Thundershirt which was interfering with his wrestling moves

 

She'll be living in Portland, Oregon and will share her parents and house with her brother, a terrier mix named Atticus.  There will be lots of hiking and walks and play time and we know she is going to have a fabulous life. So congratulations sweet furry one. We will miss you but you are going to have a fabulous life with  your new family. We can't wait for pictures and updates.

Beautiful Neah on a walk with her new brother, Atticus who was denying me a picture of his awesome "mane".