How about no?

Well Luke decided not to eat his dinner tonight. He ate his breakfast with the usual barrage of dancing and singing; it is no easy feat to get food into the boy. But tonight he wasn't having it; I could tell right away. He had to be coaxed into the kitchen and then stood at the back door staring away from his food bowl, great.

So what do you do if your dog simply won't eat? Cover the food and put it away for tomorrow morning, don't sweat it. I remember when my kids were little and occasionally they'd have an off day when they didn't want to eat; being the studious Mom that I was I told them they had to eat, wrong move. Moments after the last bite they returned their meal to me to clean up. I learned long ago not to force feed.

So tomorrow morning I'll be off to the grocers to find some liver.

Brussel sprouts

First let me say that I was not a fan of Brussel sprouts. I was made to eat the gaggish green balls as a child and I grew to hate the meer mention of their name. I also became quite talented and cutting them in halves and quarters and swallowing them down so as not to taste them. My daughters being vegetarians have been after me for years to try them again for the first time. Well lastnight was the night, my daughter cooked up a whole bag, and I agreed to at least taste them.

Yes to my surprise they were very good and they are amazingly good for you. So they will not only be on our plates more often; they dogs will be eating them. They had several chopped very small in their dinner lastnight and none were left, that's a good sign. They weren't nearly as horrible as I had remembered, nor were they as strong in flavor. They have sort of a strange taste to them, which I thought the dogs might object to but nope, they ate them all down.

They are very nutrious; check out the very old vegetable.........The Brussel sprout

The muffin man (or woman)

I am a baker; I use to bake for a weekly farmers market back home in Canada and was known as the "cookie lady." So it makes sense that my two passions come together right? As I lay in bed drinking my coffee I am contemplating making muffins for the dogs. Knowing the general ingredients that need to go into muffins to infact make them muffins; I also have to consider what they need in them to be dog friendly muffins. I made delicious people muffins a couple of weeks ago using fresh squeezed orange juice from our orange tree out back. Orange and chocolate chip, yum.

But for the dogs they need to be filled with protein; the idea of a muffin for the dogs was to be able to give them something quick if need be. Like when I'm off to the gym early in the moring or just for a midday snack. So I want protein, must have at least one egg, some sort of flour which will be whole wheat, maybe some applesauce in there as well. I think I'm going to go with beans for the protein and maybe cheese.

Well, I'll be experimenting for the next while with my muffins and will let you know what the taste testers decide.

Feeding chat

I just love feeding my Jack Russell,Jessie. She will literally eat anything, and I have only found two things she's not keen on. One is orange and the other mushrooms which makes perfect sense. As adult dogs they know not to eat the mushrooms that pop up in the back yard sometimes. How they know is a puzzle but they just do. They know what grass to eat and not to eat and can pick through a pile of green plants to find the one they are looking for.

Yesterday morning as I was trying to get Luke to give his breakfast a chance I thought how nice it would be if he was an eater. He truly is a joy to feed my girls; they'll eat anything. And as I was doing the "mmmmmmmm, look Luke yummy" routine I was growing weery again. Every single time it is the samething, unless of course it is raw beef, his favorite.

Lastnight they had dogfood mixed with other things like oatmeal, yellow pepper, some tomatoes and a meatball for Luke. Jessie cannot eat this dogfood, doesn't agree with her for some reason. But she'll eat anything like I said so I don't mind and being that she is all of 15 lbs she just needs a fraction of what the poodles eat. So her protein was egg lastnight and she ate like a champ.

Luke on the other hand said he wasn't even trying his food. I showed him that I had put a meatball in there; and the topper was of course butter. Fine...............................he'd give it a try, and amazingly he ate it; all of it. I like to give them Orijen (which was recommended by a good friend) every so often just so that sometime if I need to have them eat it they will be ready. To have three dogs that eat like champs? Asking too much I think.

Halibut and toast

The dogs had halibut lastnight; I knew ahead of time that Luke probably was not going to eat his dinner so he got it doctored up. He is very talented at picking through his food, eating what he likes and discarding the rest. Just yesterday morning he was showing off his talent to the fullest. My husband was feeding the dogs some morning toast, which is 12 whole grain organic bread from Trader Joe's with lots of butter. The girls of course will eat whatever, Luke on the other hand must have a tiny piece to start or it simply doesn't work out. Then as he got his piece he proceeded to eat the buttery part and shot the crust which had no butter on it out at the end.

Now that is what I call talent. When I feed the dogs in bowls; Jessie will toss what is 2nd or 3rd on the yummy meter out of the bowl onto the floor. Once she has eaten the prime selection she will then go back and eat whatever was tossed onto the floor. The girls really enjoyed the halibut, Luke not so much. So he got some barbequed chicken from the night before and yes butter. He wouldn't even look at his food until I told him there was butter in it.

Boys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tri tip

Yep, tri tip for the hounds. When I moved here to California I had no idea what tri-tip was. I looked it up and found out how to cook it; we don't have tri-tip in Canada, or at least where I'm from. I've often been talking to people back home and asked them if they'd ever heard of it. No one has.

But since I've been here I've sure made my fair share of it and it had become a family and friend favorite. Now that we are not eating much beef it is a dog favorite. I got a great deal on it this week at Albertson's so the dogs have been enjoying. Friday morning I was in a huge hurry to so I cut up a half of a tri-tip and fork fed the dogs. Is this okay?????Just beef?????? Oh it's more than okay, believe me the dogs are really happy about it.

The important thing when feeding your dogs real food is the protein source. So if there is anything that they can eat on it's own, it is protein. Right now I need to feed the dogs and they are getting more tri-tip. But along with that will be sweet potatoes, snap peas, apple and probiotics..........................yum.