Dancing for Snow

Hi all, Petal here. I’m here to tell you all about my poor snowless life.

I have no snow. Unless you count this patch right here.

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There are a few other patches here and there, but they’re mostly muddy and ice-like now. Definitely not the kind that’s fun to play in or eat.

It’s not fair! It’s January! It should not be 55 degrees outside.

So today I decided to do a snow dance. Like a rain dance, but for snow.

I know nothing about snow dances, or rain dances, but I’m sure it’ll work anyway.

Here’s what I did: first I spun around in a circle three times…

spinforsnow

Then I prepared to jump…

tothesky

Up to the sky I jumped!

You must jump several times.

Throw in some Jazz Hands; Mother Nature will appreciate your style and pizzazz.

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Then, just in case the dance wasn’t enough, I looked up to the sky and begged a little.

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Thinking about snow made me wish I could taste some! I continued to look up at the sky as I licked my lips so she would know how badly I want some snow.

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May I have some snow? Pleaaaase, Miss Sky?

Oh I hope it works!

Cross your paws, friends!

XOXO Petal

New Toys and a Training Bra

Over the holidays Kol’s Notes and many other fantastic blogs hosted an Advent Calendar with 24 days of giveaways. We entered these fun giveaways and were lucky enough to walk away with a prize!

We won two Unbreakoballs and they just arrived about two hours ago. One regular sized and one large sized. Like REALLY large. It’s awesome.

I entered to win this particular prize with my sister’s dog Penny in mind. She’s a ball fanatic and incredibly destructive.

Here she is, super excited about her prize (or the treats in my pocket, who knows ;))

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She’s actually a little leery of the larger ball, but by the end of our playtime outside she was warming up to it. She loves the smaller ball and is still trying to figure out how to pick it up.

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These balls are thick, sturdy, and a bit heavy. I think they’re definitely going to be impossible for Penny to destroy! Which is great, because she only had two toys of her very own before, now she’s got four. 😉

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The balls are also made in the USA! How great is that?

Here are both of the girls posing with them, because Petal wants to be included, even though she couldn’t care less about these giant orange balls.

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Thank you to Unbreakoball and the hosts of the Advent Calendar! Penny is very happy to have some more toys to play with and we’re all happy she can’t chew them apart and then swallow them. 😉

Now for a little Throwback. I had a whole other post ready for this, but… it took a really sad turn. I’m saving it for another day. Maybe.

Instead I’ll do a silly throwback.

Throwback to Petal’s first training bra!

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5 months old and wearing her first training bra! ;P

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We’re joining the Throwback Thursday blog hop hosted by Dolly the Doxie and DOGthusiast.

2 Brown Dawgs

 

We’re also joining the new Barks and Bytes blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like A Dog.

Review, Giveaway & Recipe

Hi all! Petal here! We have a treat review to share today and I told Mom that since I’m the one who taste tests them, I should be the one to write the review. She agreed.

Chewy.com sent me some tasty treats from a company called Fromm. They make all dry foods, canned foods and treats for us dogs. They make cat food too, but who cares about cats. All their foods and treats are made in the USA! Me and Mom have heard lots of good things about them, but we’ve never tried them before now.

Chewy sent me my very own 6 oz baggie of Fromm treats. They even put my name on the box. Says right here it’s for Petal.

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They only put Mom’s name on it so she wouldn’t feel left out. They’re considerate folks at Chewy.

First things first when you get a package you gotta open it! My second favorite part!

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My very favorite part is finding what lies inside. I have to say, I was very bewildered by these treats at first. My Mom thought it was funny, apparently she requested this flavor just to confuse me! There’s a word for that and it’s R-U-D-E (because Mom won’t let me use strong language, something about being a family friendly blog).

Now Mom insists on relaying the whole embarrassing conversation I had with her out in the yard…

WMreviewcranliver WMcranberryliverreview WMreviewcranliver2 WMreviewcranliver3REVIEWcranliver4 REVIEWcranliver5 REVIEWcranliver6 REVIEWcranliver7

Don’t laugh guys. I didn’t want to eat some strange cranberry hybrid’s liver. I didn’t see the comma in these here ingredients:

Wheat flour, cranberry COMMA liver, salt, garlic powder.

That’s it! According to the ingredient list on Chewy.com, the liver is chicken liver.

My Our (Mom just insists on being included) favorite things about these treats:

Low calorie (just 1 calorie per treat!) (this is obviously MOM’S favorite thing)
They’re made in Wisconsin with Wisconsin cranberries
They’re made with delicious liver (my favorite thing, Mom says “ick”)
They’re bite sized (about the size of a quarter) and perfect for training
They’re a fair price
They don’t stink and they don’t make Mom’s hands smelly

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Things to consider:

They’re a crunchy treat, not a soft one, so if you’re looking for a soft training treat, this is not it.
The actual bag does not state what animal the liver is sourced from, so I’m just assuming that Chewy is correct and it’s chicken liver; the only reason I’m pointing this out is because I know some dogs are sensitive to certain meat sources, so sensitive doggies should be aware of that.

Chewy.com is also hosting a giveaway! There will be first, second, and third place winners. You can enter to win using the Rafflecopter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(if the Rafflecopter widget doesn’t show up, just click the link. Sometimes it shows up for me and sometimes it doesn’t, I don’t know why. Sorry!)

 

Time to turn the blog back over to Mom, she has a treat recipe she wants to share with you all.

XOXO Petal

 

Last night I whipped up some dog cookies for Petal and I thought I would share the haphazard recipe with you all. Now I’m just guessing with these measurements because, uh, I rarely measure my ingredients when it comes to dog cookies. Measuring stuff = having to wash the measuring cups. Um, no thanks.

Here we go. Petal’s Fish and Fruit Cookies.

You will need:

 

About 2 1/2 or 3 cups of the flour of your choice (I used wheat and the last of the coconut flour that we had, but I know a lot of you pups have wheat allergies, so use whatever floats your boat!)

1/4 cup canned pumpkin (plain pumpkin. Nothin’ but pumpkin)

1/2 cup (about) Cranberries

1 cup..ish Pineapple chunks

Salmon oil

a few pinches of Parsley (I used fresh parsley because I had it on hand and it needed to be used)

Preheat your oven to 350º.
Throw the cranberries, pineapple chunks and parsley (if using fresh) in a blender with either water or the pineapple juice if using canned pineapple and puree well. Pour it into a mixing bowl with the flour and salmon oil (I used 4 pumps of Grizzly Salmon oil, but feel free to substitute or skip the oil all together or, if you have some canned salmon on hand, puree it and use that (I plan on doing this next time)) and mix well, adding more flour or more water as needed to make a good dough. Too sticky? You need more flour. Too hard and dry? You need more water.

Roll the dough out and cut with cookie cutters or use a pizza slicer to make squares (I used the pizza slicer because we didn’t have any cookie cutters small enough for what I wanted (bite sized cookies)). Place cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake. I baked mine at 350º for about 20 minutes before lowing the heat to about 200º, at which point I just peeked at them every so often and gave them a little poke. Once they felt a little bit crunchy, I turned the oven off and left the cookies in over night to cool.

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Have you ever seen an uglier batch of cookies? This is what happens when I’m too tired to roll the dough out nicely. It also helped that I used our poor, lame pizza slicer too slice them. Our pizza slicer is so incredibly bent that it can no longer go in a straight line, it swerves and wobbles pathetically. Our pizzas’ look just as pretty.

This morning the cookies were nice and cold and I broke them apart easily and dumped them into Petal’s cookie jar. The cookies on the outer edges were nice and crunchy while the middle pieces were softer and chewy. They also smelled really good, very fruity, if there wasn’t salmon oil in them I would taste them, but I think the salmon oil would add a weird taste that I would not enjoy. Petal seems to love them though!

Today we’re linking up with the Tasty Tuesday Blog Hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever. Check out either blog for more info and the rules of the hop. If the hop does not show up below (the hop and the Rafflecopter are teaming up to drive me crazy), you can enter it at either Kol’s blog or Sugar’s blog.

Our Black & Whites for Sunday

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Not gonna lie, I really love our black and whites this Sunday. They’re dark and dramatic looking, like they belong in the opening of a black and white crime show. One were a sweet little collie is actually a big tough detective.

Bad guys, beware. ;P

The first photo I thought was just “okay” before (I shoot in color and then use Photoshop to make them black and white), the lighting around Petal’s face was cool, but the color was not. Make it black and white and it became an entirely new photo that I actually love.

Gotta love black and white. 😉

Grab Our Badge!

Thank you to the hosts, Dachshund Nola and Sugar the Golden Retriever!

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This and That and Throwback and Thursday

(Read the title in a Daffy Duck voice. Trust me).

Today I am joining two blog hops.

Because I want to and I don’t think there are any rules against that.

Even if there are, rules are meant to be broken. 😉

First up, This ‘N That Thursday hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Ruckus the Eskie. Check out either blog for more info on the hop.

I have a question for you pet owners. Do you guys ever look at your dog or cat or other pet and ask, “Could you get any cuter?”
I’m sure you do, especially when they’re doing something extra sweet or extra cute. You know, right before they do something not so sweet or not so cute. 😉

I ask Petal this question all the time. One morning I got an answer.

One morning I asked myself, ’cause Petal was sick of trying to explain, “Could she get any cuter?” then I stuck her little toy on her head and realized…

petstuffhat14_1She absolutely could.

;P

2 Brown Dawgs
Thank you to the hosts 2 Brown Dawgs and Ruckus the Eskie!

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Now for Throwback Thursday! This blog hop is hosted by Dolly the Doxie and DOGThusiast. Check out either blog for more info on the hop.

Today we’re going to throwback to that time Lassie used me as a human chair.

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February 2006.
Lassie was just little over a year old and I was coming up on my 15th birthday.

This was simply everyday life with that goofy boy. I was his chair and he was my pillow. It’s impossible to know who played their alternative role more often, me as chair or Lassie as pillow? We didn’t keep score.

How about we go forward a few months, to that time Lassie wanted to ride his motorcycle?

WMlassiehelmet_JUN152006“Not without your helmet, young man!”
June 2006

In actuality it was that time we discovered that Build-A-Bear hats and helmets fit collie heads very well!

Or how about that time that our family Great Dane, Tal, really wanted to play but Lassie just really wanted to eat the snow?

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This photo is so over-exposed it blends right in with this post.
Yes, Tal was literally dragging Lassie through the snow by his mane. No, Lassie didn’t mind. Too much.
I can’t remember what year this was and I can’t be bothered to look, but it had to have been either late 2005 or early 2006 because Lassie is big and Ella was not a member of the family yet.

When Ella joined the family…

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October 2006.

Lassie ignored this little black and white puppy for weeks until one day she curled up against him and he realized she was an okay puppy after all when used as a pillow.

To close I’ll leave you all with a link to one of my favorite Lassie posts:
How to Make a Collie Snow Angel

Throwback Thursday blog hop

Thank you to the hosts Dolly the Doxie and DOGThusiast!

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