Black and White Sunday

I disappeared again. Getting into the rhythm of working life and going full force on my home renovations. More to come, but let's keep it simple with black and white sunday. 

Puppies got haircuts, so some super cute frumpy pictures

 before the new slimmer summer look comes in. 

Black & White Sunday

Last night my Sorority girls came over. 

Miss. Daisy was right at home.

She was the centre of attention - almost the whole night.

sorry, crappy photo on instagram.

Black & White Sunday.12.30

A Black & White Puppy Christmas Re-cap. Meet Caper's favorite spot at my inlaw

checking out some cool camera features

Letters to Santa

Tales and Tails have written letters to Santa from their dogs... I know it sounds silly, but it kind of sounds fun. Just like how i really wish I had taken them for photos with Santa.

Here's one from Daisy.

Dear Santa,

I hope you can find me. I've switched homes from last year, but I'm so very happy at my new home, with my new mom and dad, and even with my obnoxious little brother. I've been a very good girl this. I never get in trouble, and I always come when called. I know there have been a few times I got lost, and a few times I had accidents in the house, but I know my way home, and the vet fixed my leaky bladder.

For Christmas, I want you to bring Caper his own bed. I really don't like sharing the one brown bed we have. He sometimes thinks it's his, but it's really mine. But aside from that, I dont need anything. I don't really like toys and I really don't want any toothbrushes, though I do know that mom and dad would like that very much!

Anyways, I'll try not to wake mom and dad with my barking when you come to visit. Though you'll need to be super quiet and come in when I can't see or hear you.

Always good,
Miss. Daisy.


Here's one from Caper

Dear Santa,

It's my first Christmas. Mom keeps talking about presents and people, and the house looks totally different now. I think I've been nice, but I might have been more naughty. It's not my fault! I'm still a puppy and I'm still learning. I love chewing on things, so for Christmas can you bring me some more toys, maybe some with out stuffing, since mom and dad get angry when the stuffing is sprayled across the floor of the living room. I love the squeakiest ones possible please!

Also, I'm thinking that the best Christmas gift would be training lessons. I don't come when called, and I 'm not very well behaved. Daisy could also use some work and thne mom and dad would love us more.

Let Mrs. Claus know that I don't need any clothes. My poodle coat is warm enough, and I dont want to look ridiculous. how am I supposed to get the ladies?

Thanks! I'll try to be better, and stop chewing and eating on everything.
Caper

Christmas Photos

With Christmas now looming, Eric and I took advantage of our decorated tree/house and our nice outfits (for a friends wedding) and attempted to use our timer to take some family photos. 

If only it was easy to get the dogs cooperating! 

"The Girls"

"The Boys"

Christmas love. :) 

Eric played around with our Sony Nex5R and figured out how to use the applications to hook it up to our phones so we can use our phones to set off the timer.

Christmas Puppy Outfits

In October I talked about dressing up my dogs for Halloween. I never did.

Now it's December. I've been looking for the perfect Christmas outfit for my pups.

After much searching, I found them. They are perfect. I found them at Winners. 

This is how I think Caper feels about his Santa Suit. 

It has a matching hat, but you try getting a dog to wear a hat! I think he hates it because it makes him too warm. He's getting his Christmas hair cut soon. It'll be good. 

Daisy is super sweet in her dress. She loves wearing clothes.

Well, I'm not sure if she LOVES IT. But she definitly doesn't mind it. 

Sweet Potato & PB Dog Treats

Not only will I be beginning my Christmas baking soon for us human types, but also for the dogs in my life. Including my two rotten beasts, and some other family ones. I picked up these super cute baby christmas cookie cutters as well as a bone cutter, and started the search on pinterest and the web. Today, I tried one from Rebecca Ray

I figure that with the buckets of cookies and squares, why not send some delicious home made dog treats home with everyone. 

Sweet Potato and Peanut Butter Dog Treats (adjusted)

2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

2 eggs

2/3 cup canned sweet potato -- serious, right next to corn and beans 

Liquid from the canned sweet potato, just enough to moisten

3 tablespoons peanut butter

Literally, this is easy.

Mix all ingredients until well blended.

Roll out till about 1/2 inch thick. 

Cut out cookies with cookie cutter and bake for about 30ish minutes, about 15-20 minutes for the baby ones. 

Cool and feed to your dogs! 

Daisy LOVES THEM. Caper, I think he's impartial. Daisy is a food pig. She eats anything.

PS. Why is Pinterest not yet a word accepted by spellchecks. 

100th Post

Say What?

Already!

I feel as if this post should be influential and profound.

That this post should be something amazing. 

Guess What!

It's not. 

Instead, I'll tell you that one of my new favorite spots to buy dog sweaters is Winners! Who would have thought. I found the best sweaters, unfortunately, they didn't have matching "boy" and "girl" sweaters. 

Daisy tried to put her sweater on this morning. It snowed last night. She gets cold easily.

Caper's sweater is a little small, and he has too much fur, so a tuft sticks out in the stupid hole for the leash. 

I work retail.

Canadian retail has for some reason as grasped onto this idea of 'Black Friday' --- *rolls eyes*

It will be fun! 

In other news, I'm finishing up my Christmas Decorating.

Can't wait to get my tree in December (no trees till at least December 1st)! 

Hubby said we can get a real one! :D 

Now the Christmas Baking will start next week!

What's your favorite christmas recipe?

Caper is a professional Monkey hunter. His favorite toys are shaped like monkeys.
This squeaky toy is no exception. This is him plotting his next attack.
The monkey better watch out! 

Black & White Sunday.2

I'm not taking part in Social Sunday today, hopefully next week! Here's some pics from my little munchkins playing with their toys. As we speak, Caper is going crazy with his squeaky plastic monkey. It's obnoxious!

The toys. 

This is how daisy hangs out in her bed. 

yum, let's eat my monkey's stuffing!

Playtime over.

Black & White Sunday

Today I'm joining in on the Black and White Sunday Blog Hop via MyLifeinBlogYears

Now I found it last night, and so, this morning took advantage of some puppies playing in my mom's backyard!  Ohh, and I got to legit play with the Black and White Setting on my camera. Personally, I think my dogs look much better in colour. We made it to Chilliwack just fine last night =D

Want to join the hop? Just follow the rules below.

1) Link up your blog name and URL using the Linky Tool below (link is at the bottom of the thumbnails).

2) Follow your co-hosts and follow as many other blogs on the linky as you’d like.

3) Please ONLY SUBMIT A FEW PHOTOS with minimal or no text, and make sure it’s in BLACK AND WHITE.

4) Grab the “Black and White Sunday Blog Hop” button below and include it in your Sunday Blog post.

DIY Puppy Pee Pads

I believe that it's inevitable that this winter will result in many "puppy accidents" inside.

Daisy has already made it clear she hates the cold winter, and that she cannot hold her bladder for the duration of the night. 

The hormones have helped. There have been significantly fewer accidents. 

A puppy pad has been placed out and she has taken to it. 

But, the downside is that I HATE PUPPY PADS. 

I bought the eco friendy ones. They SUCK.

I don't want to buy them, or throw them out.

Like femine hygiene bads and diapers, they probably don't decompose in the landfill very well. 

So! I've decided to make my own! 

There aren't many tutorials. So I kinda winged it.

I used what I know about making my feminine hygiene pads to make them. 

Because it uses PUL fabric it was slightly expensive. 

Materials:

Diaper Flannel (twice as much)

Flannel. (I found cute puppy dog fabrics)

PUL Fabric (waterproof stuff)

Thread. 

I bought 1.4 metres of flannel and pul and made 6 training pads! 

I choose dimensions that were half the width of the fabric, and then into thirds. Turned out to be 19inches by 22 inches. This was super rough. And I trimmed a lot more down. 

Then the pattern fabric was fused to two layers of diaper flannel. 

when I say fused. i mean I stitched lopsided squares into it. I didn't really make a lot of effort to be super precise. I figured it was just a pee pad. 

Then with right sides together, I matched the flannels with the pul fabric. 

After trimming up some edges they were stitched together

That's right, turn it inside out, and iron! 

I like to leave a gap in the middle of one side (instead of a corner. 

I iron it all together and then do a top stitch around the whole thing. 

Final Product.

Put it down in the puppy pee area (this area needs to be changed)

So far,  nobody has used them. 

Then again nobody has gone inside.

I hope to find some of that puppy urine spray, or wait for an accident to happen and rub it all over it so they know that this is where to go.

Hubby is worried that they'll want to take naps on it. 

Daisy's Hormones

We should have taken the health insurance offer from the SPCA when we adopted Daisy.

I knew we had a problem because she was 3 years 6 months when we got her and she wasn't house trained. But I shrugged it off. There were lots of changes going on in her life. 

It's been 3 months, and the accidents aren't getting better. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes during the day. Sometimes it looks like she was headed outside, but then, she just went. And, I've never seen it happen, but I THINK it's Daisy. I'm 95% sure it is. 

The boarder where we take our dogs suggested that Daisy drinks WAY LOTS of water. 

She suggested we take her to the vet. We trusted her. 

I hummed and hawwed. And then I woke up to pee stains on my bedroom carpet and the vet was being called. Brought her in the next day. 

***

She's lost a little weight. She's on the slim side the vet explains.

Oh Uh. 

As a shih tzu cross she is prone to kidney failure.

Awesome. 

We'll just do a blood work up to check and see whats going on. 

Okay. 

It could just be that she has a weak sphynctor. 

Oh, and I guess you can't teach your dog to do kegels. 

Or maybe she's anatomically built weird, like an extra large vagina which pools urine and it just releases. 

Oh F**k. I hope not. 

***

Anyways, after an anxious 8 hours, the vet finally called back with the results: NORMAL

Sweet. 

But, because it might be her sphnctory hormones.

Expensive hormones because the cheaper ones she says not the safest for my dog. 

Okay. I trust.

Now, twice a day hormones. And then one half a pill every week. 

The joys of having a furbaby.

Update: Success. It's been working.

Less accidents. 

On her follow up appt the Doctor suggested I get her dewormed since she shows an abnormailty in her bloodwork that is linked to having a weakness to worms... awesome...

Winter Wonderland

So, apparently, Saturday's 7.7 Earthquake is still experiencing aftershocks, including at 6.2 last night. Crazy. We are too far away to really feel them, but every now and then somebody on facebook land mentions they felt something. And you go 'holy crap, still!"

Moreover, the snow continues to fall! Seriously. 

It's now at about 11-12 inches. 

PROOF!

First day of snow. Made the puppies a trail.

Alright.... and I know that I have been on puppy overload recently, but bare with me! 

With it being -20C this morning, I'm extraordinarily grateful that I finished my puppies coats!

They are super cute. And the pattern is unbelievably easy! 

Takes like an hour, two tops to finish the coats.

Daisy rocking her new coat.

Caper's coat. 

I attempted to make them matching booties.

FAIL.

Eric and I just went out and bought them booties.

We struggled with sizes. And ended up with an xxs and itty bitty muttlucks. 

So far, puppies haven't really figured it them out. 

They look so funny wandering around in them, but once I kicked them outside they understood better. 

Trying to get the booties on! 

The look of uncertainty.
What am I supposed to do with these things on?

Anyways, I'm off to catch an airplane to Vancouver!

Time to escape this winterwonderland for the rainy west coast. 

Winter Dog Care????

I was going to wait till another day to post this.
But it snowed like a lot last night.
I feel so underprepared. My dogs coats aren't made.
They don't have booties. And they aren't loving the snow at all!

The snow has fallen.

Now, how do I take care of my puppies?

The First Thing I've done in prep is taken them to the groomers.

I had their paws trimmed.

From what I hear, I'm going to have to be careful of their paws getting frost bite and ice clumps, and of the deicing chemicals on the roads when I take them for walk. 

The Second thing I'm working on is dog jackets.

My boarder suggested coats for when it gets REALLY cold and windy. 

At what temperature should my dogs where there coats?

anyone have any advice on winterizing their dogs?

The Third thing I'm thinking about is dog booties.

I've been thinking of making matching ones to their jackets. 

Like this pattern here or this one

Or buying some from Etsy or the Pet Store.

What are your ideas on dog shoes? Do you let your dogs where the shoes?

I'm also seeing some information about balms... 

 Something like this or this one, Mushers Secret

or maybe homemade recipes like this one

The Fourth thing I'm thinking about is house training.

Daisy already has a disadvantage. 

But today, I came home to not one, not two, but 4 puddles on my linoleum. 

This is Capers first winter.

Daisy has already expressed disinterest in snow. 

Puppy Pads? How can I puppy pad train my puppies? 

Check out these Nine Must haves...

And I must remember this post too about small dog care in the winter.

Playing with Puppies

Yesterday was my Birthday. 

I am now officially as old as my husband. 

For one month.

I had to work yesterday.

It was scheduled for only 3 hours.

But worked more because my TL had a seizure the night before (sad, she's better) and my ASM now has a broken rib from a fall the day before. 

Before work, puppies were dropped off for a grooming appointment. They were then picked up.

When I got home, I wanted to go for a walk and take some pictures with my birthday gift - my new sony nex 5r camera!

So, we loaded up the dogs, I woke up my sleeping husband, and that's what we did.

The fresh snow and decaying leaves are the same colour as my dogs, and we admit, every now and then, it was hard to find them!