Don't you know that I'm toxic........part one

I recently found a recipe online for a liver treat to give to your dog. They recommended soaking the liver in bourbon. Seriously.

Alcohol is toxic to dogs even in tiny amounts and especially with smaller breeds. So at home it's worth remembering not to leave glasses of your favourite tipple at a height your dog can reach, especially as some dogs are attracted to the sweetness of the drink. If you think your dog may have drunk alcohol phone your vet asap.

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Remember doggies, just say no.

I'm a fool for yogurt

I love to stir a spoonful of yogurt into any dog's dinner.  It's got calcium and vitamins including the B's and A. Most importantly though it's got all that friendly bacteria we hear so much about. It's great to feed at any time with any meal but if your dog has diarrhoea or is on antibiotics for any reason (antibiotics can kill the normal bowel bacteria and antibiotics can often cause diarrhoea) then feeding yogurt is a damn good thing.

No exact measurements but per meal reckon on a teaspoon for a little dog, a tablespoon for a medium sized one and a couple of tablespoons for big boys.

When a say yogurt I mean plain, live, natural yogurt. But you knew that.

A little mix

I think of this as a Sunday afternoon thing to do with that feeling of getting everything planned for the week ahead.

It's a simple recipe mix and works best when made in bulk and then frozen into portions. It's the base to which you add a protein and the proportion is about 40% mix to 60% protein. You can use different types of protein every time you feed. For example you can stir in canned mackerel (use the one in spring water or olive oil and drain well) or cooked chicken (no cooked bones) or raw chunks of meat like beef or a couple of eggs (raw or cooked) or cottage cheese.

I tend to use American cups to measure rather then weight. That way you can easily make more or less depending on what you need.

What to do:

Cook half a cup of brown rice (I often use the cheating one that cooks in 10 minutes, that way your veg will be done in the same time), a handful of cubed squash and a handful of broccoli florets in a pint of boiling water until everything is cooked.

Take off the heat, drain and allow to cool a little.

Stir in a handful of chopped parsley, a handful of chopped raw spinach, half a cup of sweetcorn, (creamed or niblets), half a cup of canned lentils and half a cup of oats.

Allow to get completely cold then freeze into individual portions in freezer bags.

Take out a portion to defrost and when fully thawed serve it with one of the protein suggestions above. You can also stir in a little plain live yogurt right at the end.

Tasty and organised.

An introduction......

This is my first post and as I write it, Ruben is out in the garden having his dinner, which today means gnawing on a raw beef bone. I'm a great believer in feeding bones, just so long as you always feed them raw.

Beef bones are Ruben's favourite and our garden often resembles one of those scenes from the Wild West with cow bones strewn all over the place. He sometimes buries them but most of the time I sneak out and throw away the old ones. If I forget, a flock of magpies line up to pick them clean and then I have to spend the day singing the old Magpie theme tune to myself to see if I'm going to get silver or gold..........