Tis’ the season

Hello Friends,

We celebrated Christmas this weekend at my house, as my Mr. was home and it’s the last weekend he’s home until after Christmas.

Friends came far and wide dressed with their ugly Christmas sweaters, we did a yankee swap. Tons of fun – and wine.

The lead up to Christmas for me, is just as exciting as the day of. Getting the house ready, decorating – respecting family traditions. Love it all.

It got me thinking though – we are very fortunate, others are not. My friend and I decided to make some doggie biscuits last week and take them over to one of my favorite non-profit dog rescue groups, where I am in the process of becoming a volunteer. Cool Dog Rescue is an all breed dog rescue who saves dogs from the kill shelters in Quebec. They work with local truckers, Pilots and Paws Canada and their large network of amazing volunteers to transport dogs from mostly Quebec and Ontario to Nova Scotia (sometimes travelling up to 2300 km one way!).

When we had Newton, I used to go to my favorite doggie recipe blog when we were in the mood to make some yummy treats – 3mbakery (find out more about them here). I wanted to try some gluten free recipes as some of our doggie friends there have wheat allergies. Low and behold of course they had some of course (Look through their recipe index to find lots!)

We decided on the Dog Health Sticks, as they had pumpkin in them, a natural digestive aid. Plus, they sounded delish!

We put small amounts of the mixture in small muffin tins, but I’d like to go back and try out one of these cool pans they had in the shape of dog bones. I have the dog shaped cookie cutters, but I found this mixture was a little bit too runny to use with the cutters (perhaps my error?). The recipe was easy enough and the ingredients simple to get.

I brought them in to one of the organizers’ houses last week, and we did a test with her dog – Sparky. A Pom who is one picky eater, we weren’t sure how it was going to go. He ate it, wagged his tail and asked for more! SUCCESS!

All in all, a great recipe to try again!

On a side note I know Amazon & eBay have some great dog friendly cookie cutters and pans!

Big thanks to 3mbakery for posting their yummy recipes!

Today, I’ll also leave you with another little treat from this week: Stewart and Frank the tank also got into the holiday spirit this weekend – with perhaps a little assistance from moi. As you can see, one of them likes it more than the other…