Bumblebee Blog

Bzzzz November 14th, 2009

When I brought home my first Papillon, Sophie, she was so small she could fit into the palm of my hand.

What she lacked in size she made up for in attitude. She would play dash-and-hide with our 55 pound Belgian Malinois, Winifred. She quickly discovered her voice—and has been using it liberally ever since. And she refused to sleep alone. After two sleepless weeks, Harry and I finally caved in and let her sleep with us.

Sophie

One of the biggest challenges of raising a small dog is house training. Little dogs just don’t want to brave the wind, rain, cold weather, tall grass or bugs when there’s a perfectly good floor inside.

I’ve always been a carrot rather than the stick kind of gal, so I figured I would liberally reward Sophie when she did her business outside. “Good peepee!” “Good poopoo!” “Nice potty.”

And she would get a treat.

Sophie was so thrilled with this arrangement that she could muster up five, six, seven bits of business in a single outing, locking eyes with me the whole time to make sure I acknowledged her accomplishments.

This house training system worked so well that we also used it on our second Papillon, Sarah.

Of course, with all this handing-out-of-treats business, we must keep a jar stocked with treats in the house at all times. I certainly buy treats in bulk. But the best treats—the ones the little dogs love above anything else—are the ones Mom makes with simple ingredients and her own two hands.

dog treats 2

These are their favorite biscuits. They don’t have the multi-syllabic ingredients of the store-bought treats. They are filled with wheat flour, cheddar cheese and oats. And I enjoy making little shapes, such as hearts and fish. I need to find a tiny cat-shaped cookie cutter too.

Sarah

ARF!

Here’s where I found their favorite dog biscuit recipe.

Posted In: Dogs and Cats

Tags: dog biscuits, Dogs, Papillons, treats

12 Comments

Bzzzz November 12th, 2009

There is nothing exotic about Marilyn or Madelyn.

The poor birds do their share of work by pushing out a lovely brown egg a day each. And yet do visitors stop to exclaim “My what a beautiful chicken!” like they do with the Polish hens? Does anyone admire their graceful movements, as with the white leghorns and their fashion runway walk? Does anyone listen for their beautiful voices, as with T. Boone Chickens?

They aren’t even athletic. While the other chickens can jump to snatch a treat from their bell toy in the outside run, the black hens can only stand underneath and look longingly at the lettuce. People laugh at their pitiful attempts to hop off the ground. The black chickens just can’t jump.

Marilyn 2

To add insult to injury, we can’t even tell them apart. That’s right. They look just alike. We use the names Madelyn and Marilyn interchangeably between the two of them.

Marilyn sm