Happy Birthday Puppy Son!

Today was Mav's birthday, so I thought I should keep with the tradition of testing out homemade puppy food recipes on him....I'm thinking this year's looked much better than the pureed chicken cake I made last year (see the recipe here), and they almost smelled good enough while baking to try one myself.....almost. :)

I started with 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup pumpkin puree, an egg, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, and 1/2 cup water.

I added the ingredients to a large bowl...

...and mixed together until combined.

I then spooned about 2 tablespoons of the batter evenly into a greased muffin tin and baked it in a 350 degree oven for 17-20 minutes.

...I'm sad to say, the treats really didn't rise at all, so next time I would make a bigger effort to shape the treats BEFORE baking them. I think it would've helped them be much prettier and not look like something that just came UP from a dog's stomach! Hehehe

Once cooled, I removed the treats from the muffin tin for consumption! I only gave each pup one treat so it wouldn't upset their stomach...even though pumpkin and peanut butter are pretty mild, I didn't want to risk it! I put the rest in the fridge since the batter is made with an egg and I didn't want them going bad.

As you can see, I have two very excited Aussies :)
Happy birthday baby boy!!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Weekend Trip - Snowy Visit to Indiana!

This past weekend Andrew and I drove up to Indiana to see family and friends, and while we were there we got to see our first snow in nearly three years!!!! Needless to say, the pups were more than thrilled with the chilly temperatures, so I thought I could share a few of the cute pictures we got of our little fur babies!

I love that I was able to capture a couple action shots of our crazies being crazy!

 

Aussies are quick moving so it's hard to get pics sometimes, but I was able to capture this one of Mav's furry booty and little paw. :)

  

The third little squirt in this picture is my grandpa's dog Buddy...he enjoyed having some company to run around with!

Mav says...we loveeeeeee snow!!!

Maverick's Puppy Birthday Cake

Yesterday my furry baby Maverick turned two years old! He's the older of our two Aussies and black tri colored. I could go on and on all day about how wonderful he has made mine and Andrew's life. I had never known such a smart dog until we got this pup...he doesn't require formal training but can pick up on words and is better at reading body language than any other man I know! :) He is loyal to a fault to his family and loves nothing more than getting love and attention from his humans. From the day we got Ripley, he watched her like a good big brother would and will actually try to lead her the right way if she is being mischievous. Needless to say, I love my Mav!

So, I thought for his second birthday, why not go ALL out and make him something above the usual extra treats...and bake a puppy birthday cake! I think I was pretty successful...the dogs seemed to like it at least!

I started with a chicken breast, one egg, peanut butter, oats, and baking powder. Now before I get any nay-sayers, I know that technically baking powder is on the no-no list for doggies; however I only used one teaspoon and it was cooked into the cake, not raw. Obviously if you are extremely concerned you could leave this out and your cake would just be much more dense.

 

To make the "batter" I added the chicken breast, egg, 1/4 cup of peanut butter, 1/2 cup oats, 1 tsp. baking powder, and 1 cup of water to a food processor. I blended it for about 30 seconds until it was well combined.

 

Since I wanted a fancy layered cake, I divided the batter evenly between two 4" mini spring-form pans. You could always use small Pyrex bowls (or any small oven-friendly baking dish), or just add all the batter to a standard cake pan for one layer if you don't have any type of miniature bake ware. 

 

I baked the cakes at 375 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes, until a toothpick came out clean. Once removed from the oven, I let them sit about 10 minutes before removing the spring-form pan and transferring them to a cooling rack.

 

To make the "icing," I cooked a cup of instant rice in the microwave and added it to the food processor with a couple tablespoons of water. I blended this on high until the rice was a mushy mixture. 

 

I then spread the icing over both layers of the cake, keeping a tablespoon in reserve to color for a decoration on top of the cake. I flipped the top layer upside down when spreading the icing so I'd have an even surface for the decoration as well.

 

To make the colored icing, I added some peanut butter to the reserved rice mixture until well combined. I added a little more water as well so it would be easier to work with. I put the colored icing in a sandwich bag and cut off the corner to it could be used as a piping bag.

 

Ta-da!!!

 

Even though this was a very healthy cake all things considered, I didn't want to upset puppy tummies so I gave each of them an eighth of the full cake which they promptly devoured. I put the rest in the refrigerator since it's made with meat and I don't want it to go bad. I'm sure it will be a yummy snack for them over the next week!

 

"Bone" appetit!!!

 

 

 

 

Cleaning Day - Couch De-Odorizing

Saturdays are one of my favorite days of the week because I get to catch up on all the chores I don't get to throughout the work week....I honestly look forward to getting my cup of coffee, turning on the Food Network, and getting to work on the house. 

Today, I wanted to focus on my couch because lately it's been smelling a little like the pups. I know this grosses some people out, and I KNOW the ultimate fix for this would be to not allow them on the furniture, but to me that just is not an option...they are my snuggle bugs when Andrew is working late! 

Now, I will preface this post by saying that I try to clean my couch every month or so in order to keep the pet scents from getting deeply ingrained in the cushions. If I were to truly deep clean my couch, I would certainly use a deep steamer rather than my current method, but this seems to work for me. Even so, I have found through trial and error that cleaning a couch is a multi-step process. First, you'll need to vacuum any dog hair off the surface and out of the crevices. I like to use the small bristle attachment to go over the surface, then the smaller crease attachment to get between the cushions and in the crevices. 

I then mix up about 1 tablespoon of Resolve Carpet Cleaner (I use the Pet line) with about 4 cups of hot water. Dampen a clean cloth with this mixture and wipe down your whole couch. 

As the couch is drying, douse it in Febreze Pet Odor Eliminator. I've found that when doing this while the couch is still damp, it grabs ahold of any odors left and will leave the couch smelling fresh as it dries. 

Try your best to keep the pets off the furniture while it's drying (will probably take about a hour to fully dry off). But after that it's good as new!