Kong toys

I love #Kong toys! They are durable, come in different shapes and sizes, and you can stuff them!

Here are a couple different ones I have for the puppies.

Today, I'll show you what I do with them. 

First I filled them with puppy food.

Then I sealed off the end (both ends on the red ball) with peanut butter or cheese. *Hint* Don't put to much cheese in there (just enough to "seal' the end) or you may end up with some loose stool:(

Filled with food and sealed shut.

Now we stick them in the freezer until the cheese/peanut butter is frozen. (Shhhh...please don't tell my family there are dog toys in the freezer! *wink)

Now we share with the puppies to keep them occupied!

These are wonderful for crate training. It gives the puppy something to keep them busy instead of worrying about being closed in their crate. And you can actually get the bigger Kongs and put the puppy's whole meal in there. This is especially great if the puppy has to be home alone while you go to work. It will spend a good part of it's morning getting his breakfast out of the Kong.

Of course, they both want the same one!

Now we've got it. One Kong per puppy! Happy mom, happy puppies!

Cookies!

I don't know about your dogs, but my dogs get treats everyday. At our house, the dogs all know what the word "Cookie" means!

So I go through a lot of cookies and am always looking for some that look halfway "healthy". One day I decided to do some internet perusing and find some recipes to make my own.

Today was the first test recipe that I found on Pinterest. They are called "Homemade Pumpkin Dog Treats" and found on http://blog.doggievogue.com.

I decided to try a double batch since I have more than a couple dogs ;) And I did substitute some unrefined white flour and rice flour for some of the wheat flour since I didn't have enough. They still turned out fine.

Here they are ready to go in the oven. And yes, it did take a while to make all those! The recipe says to measure the dough out by teaspoonfuls then flatten with a fork. Doubling the recipe got me over 120 cookies.

They puffed up a bit with baking.

Now to see if the "taste testers" will eat them. This cookie is disappearing!

Number two cookie going in!

The cookie monster looking for crumbs.

Yep!  I think we'll make these again.