Make Your Own Healthy Dog Food

The rumors are true, a happy dog is a healthy dog, and vice versus. My boys have sensitive stomachs but they LOVE to eat. In order to keep a balanced diet, but still making sure they get the nutrients they need, I make them a special meal that I wanted to share with you all.

This recipe is for dogs weighing between 35-60 pounds, I suggest doubling for bigger dogs. Ollie gets one and a half portions.

2 cups high protein dog food in which the first ingredient in a solid meat. We use and suggest Nutro Venison and brown rice, which is our go-to food. It is high protein and venison is the first ingredient, brown rice is the second.

I cook plain chicken breasts, NO BONES! Chicken bones can split into shards and rip up a dogs stomach lining, so make sure you either buy boneless or de-bone the chicken. Cook it all the way through and add a hearty green vegetable. I use brussels sprouts or another green veggie.

My dogs love tomatoes, more than anything. I could give them tomato treats all day long and they would be happy little campers. I mix tomatoes in with some more cooked brown rice and greek yogurt (or another plain white yogurt with low sugar.) A cap full of apple cider vinegar and a cup of water all mixed together. I chop up some fresh baby carrots too, but only for Ollie. he loves them! Top it with a spoonful of yogurt as a special treat, or peanut butter, but PB is pretty high in fat, so maybe only on Sundays.

The apple cider vinegar is for fleas. I HATE that we have to use flea medicine. It's a personal opinion, but after doing boat loads of research, and trying out a billion different natural methods, the apple cider vinegar seems to work the best. A cap full a day will deter the fleas from biting, you may still find a few, and I still use a low dose of external flea meds, but I can totally tell a difference using the vinegar. ACV has a trillion other uses and is a great thing to have around the house.

Your dogs will thank you by living extra long and healthy lives! Their fur will be healthier and they, just like us, will live a fuller life with a better diet. I know it's hard to spend extra money during rough times, so a little trick I use is when I know I'll be making chicken for us, I make a little extra and put it aside, or freeze it. I give them the veggies that we eat, and don't get anything extra.

Do you feed your pups anything special? Do make your own dog food, I would love to see your recipe!

xo,

Beca

PS I forgot to add that we often put apples in their food too, I was just out of them and completely spaced it!

Sea How Much I Love You

Happy Valentines Day, friends. I got this card for Doug from Cartoules Press. We're planning on making breakfast for dinner and watch scary movies tonight. I can't wait!

Today has been a busy work day and isn't quite over yet, but I certainly found a minute to play with my giant puppy on the porch. It's been raining off and on today, so a play date on the porch kind of called for a goofy photo shoot. I love this little (big) guy so dang much. He's my other Valentine today! (Don't tell Charlie or Monster...)

xo,

Beca

PS. The winner of the super bundle is miss Polly Davies. Please email me at tumbleweeds.shop {at} gmail {dot} com to collect your amazing prize pack.

Play Date with Patrick

We love nothing more than our coffee + play dates with Patrick and Chelsea. We are certainly going to miss them once we get out to Tennessee. Monster loves Patrick, and they are too ridiculously cute together.

I better get at least one of these play dates in before we move. I am so happy to have met Chelsea and her little family while in San Diego!

Do your pups have play date friends, too?

xo,

Beca

Little Bits of This, Little Bits of That

Today has been ultra productive so far, we are really, really busy. Trying to get as caught up as possible before this weekend. We have high hopes and are staying super duper positive that this holiday season will blow our minds. And pay our bills, you know! :)

A little snippet of my ongoing to-do lists. I have multiple lists. That's right.

These are a new style we are introducing to our shop. This is Tobacco Burl.

It is pretty breathtaking. And these round wayfarers are perfection. What do you think?

And this is how we work.

The poor dogs have been so neglected lately, with us being so busy, that they just stomp around the house pouting and whining. I feel so bad, but at least we are home and with them, instead of at some crappy job, right. Well, to spoil them a little we went to the treat buffet at Petco and got them a pound of cookies, crackers and even little teddy grams. They are pretty hyped on it to say the least. Also, funny story, there was a 5 month old Great Dane in line next to the treat buffet, and while his owners were paying their bill, he was helping himself to the treats, and NOBODY NOTICED!!! We just stood back and watched. It was quite possibly the cutest and funniest thing we had ever seen.

Back to work for this lady. I have about a million bags to sew while Doug is finishing a handful of glasses to send out today, then well, you saw my to-do list. Please don't forget to check out the auction going on over on the Dinosaur Toes Blog this week!

XO,

Beca

World Famous Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies and Dog Costumes

Okay, so it's that time of the year. Pumpkin everything and stupid dog costumes. I'm pretty stoked though. Because I love pumpkin everything, and I love dressing my dogs up. They obviously love it too.

I don't really use a recipe for my pumpkin cookies. Sorry. They always seem to come out though, so maybe I should write down what I do next time....

Tricks of the trade, learned from my Grandma. Don't blend the butter completely, because during the baking process it will melt and make your cookies extra perfect. Also, less baking soda, more baking powder. It makes the cookies more "cake-y" and that's the way Doug likes them. And that's kind of all that matters to me when I'm baking.

So, last year, I bought this moose head costume for Ollie. he hates it, with a passion, and if I put it on him, he will tear it to shreds, so I put it on Charlie and it's pretty hilarious. Doesn't he look pathetic?

And Ollie, the hipster, wearing Knockarounds and a scarf. That's my boy. He also hated wearing sunglasses until I held a piece of cheese up so he would sit still. It only kind of worked....

What the heck is going on with you? Happy Thursday!

xo,

Beca

Also, if you want to read the complete story on how we started our business, head over to My Girl Thursday's Blog and check it out!

Charlie the Librarian is Excited about Life

I haven't been feeling too excited about blogging recently, I can't really explain it, maybe I am just too busy, or I'm not really excited about sitting on the computer for any longer than totally necessary. I'm bad, I know. But I have been really excited about things like cleaning the kitchen, making 6 million pairs of sunglasses, and matching bags, working in the shop and doing Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. (Okay, so I have only been doing it every other day, so more like the 60 day shred...)

Charlie is really excited about sleeping, eating trash, sleeping, wearing these red glasses and laying in the sun while sleeping. I love this dog. I love our messy workshop and I love 1990's nickelodeon cartoons, which I am going to get back to watching while I work on sunglasses. Yeah, predictable.

Hope ya'll is well.

xo,

Beca

Friendship and a Pup Date

A few days ago, I met up with Ainsley and Chelsea for lunch at the Little El Zarape and our pups got to have a little date too. Patrick just may be the cutest Boston Terrier pup around. After a little too much excitement (ie my 85 pound American Bulldog got a little *over-excited* and pinned the poor puppy to the ground,) Patrick and Ollie had a good time chasing each other around the yard, although Ollie mowed him over a few times. It was pretty hilarious. I decided to leave the big dog at home and take Charlie to lunch with us.

Charlie has the patience of an old, grumpy man, so there was a lot of pouting and grumpiness involved. (Gosh, my dogs are so bad!) But after juggling lunch and two dogs, we headed over to Viva Pops for some Lavender Lemonade Popsicle and pup-sicles for the boys.

The pup-pops are so cute and safe for babies too because it's just carrot and apple. Well, my Charlie is so spoiled, he scoffed at the pup-pop and pretty much stole my Lavender Lemonade. I was in shock. But Patrick, true to his adorable puppy nature ate both pup-pops and had orange all over his little face!

It was a really nice afternoon and a good break from work. It's so nice having friends in town (I still feel so new!!) and being able to take the time to visit.

What are you doing this weekend?

xo,

Beca

Pastel Pups by Rosita Mustache

Today I was going to blog about food. We made shrimp coated in Panko last night and I love it so much, I wanted to share, but I just couldn't do it, knowing I have these beauties to share with you. So you'll have to wait until next week to read about my love affair with Panko.

But now, oh my. Now, you get to see the amazing paintings that showed up in my mailbox today from Miss Rosita Mustache. Er, on my stoop because they obviously don't fit in my mailbox. They are huge! Life size, really! Except Ollie, he's too big to have a life size anything. Only life size hugs from that lovable oaf.

I love painting with watercolors, but I am not a painter with oils or acrylics. I just make a big old mess, so I have so much respect for painters who can give life to a painting using those mediums. Rosita Mustache has captured my pups personalities perfectly! (say that five times fast!)

The colors are incredible. The sunshiny day isn't doing these beauties justice, the colors are so pastel, they remind me of candy!

I am head over heels for these paintings and I can't believe I have them in my house now. Probably the best little birthday surprise ever!!

Charlie was being uncooperative while I was taking photos of him, he just wanted to snuggle, but seriously, the eyes are a perfect match. Charlie has the most expressive eyes, and is such an Eeyore, that his expression in the painting kills me.

Check out Danielle's blog post about the portrait she got from Rosita Mustache in the mail today!! And seriously, take a peek at her shop because there are a lot of pet portraits out there, but I've never seen any with so much personality or originality. Now I just need to figure out where to hang them!!

xo,

Beca

A Popsicle Kind of Afternoon

After another stressful, strenuous day at work, I got home just in time to say goodbye to our visiting buddy. It's been so nice having a friend visiting, especially because we all had so much fun when we all lived together in Tucson, it's been weird not having him close by. He even helped out big time with our shop, sanding and cutting, and keeping us from going crazy!

Doug left to go skateboarding and I had some much needed me-time. The boys joined me in the yard for a Popsicle and some laying in the sun with my eyes closed. It was rejuvenating, and now I'm ready to clean the house up and get busy here. I still have a lot of bags to make, and Doug is pumping out orders like a crazy man. The post office will love me tomorrow!

I snapped a few photos while we took a breather. Enjoy!

(Charlie snagged this pop-stick while I was playing with Monster, don't worry, I got it away from him but took a photo first because he was so proud that he sneaked it!)

(My hair is all kinds a mess right now!!)

What do you do when you need some you-time?

xo

Beca

The wind, the Machine and the Dog

I was able to take today off since one of my cake orders got moved to tomorrow. Thankfully, because I needed it! We woke up early, once again, to a barking dog. Poor pup, he's so sad. Ate breakfast burritos, kissed the babes goodbye and drove to the swap meet. We found some neat stuff, and this pretty machine was almost ours, but after much deliberation, decided not to get it. Call me crazy.

The wind was kind of crazy today, my hair was being dangerously out of control. I miss having super long hair. There really is nothing like having the wind whip your hair around.

While at the swap meet, we found a new spectra, since we have had a few packs of Polaroid film in our fridge, but it didn't fit our sx-70. I love taking pictures of charlie, because he's so photogenic, and just so happened to get a Polaroid and a digital photo on him doing the exact same thing. Being a babe.

What did you do today?

xo,

Beca

Heart Shaped Pancakes!

Unfortunately, we didn't wake up in the best moods. Our new neighbors are not the best dog owners, and leave their poor pup outside all hours of the day and night. He barks and howls and cries non-stop and I am this close to going over there. I don't want to jump to calling animal control and filing a complaint, but it is inhumane, the poor dog is so lonely and sad. And loud. So, we didn't sleep great, and woke up to the owners yelling at him from out their front door, However, he didn't take a breath and kept barking. He finally calmed down when Doug went out and talked to him through the fence, but now we're wide awake and a little sleep deprived.

BUT, as planned, I made heart shaped pancakes and Turkey bacon for breakfast. We have been pretty good about eating healthy, so it was a fun treat to get a little sweet for breakfast on my only day off this week.

I got this heart mold from the swap meet for a quarter a few months ago, and thought it was just an old fashioned cookie cutter, but in fact, it is made for pancakes! It has a great handle and with a little bit of release spray, it makes the cutest heart shaped pancakes!

They definitely lifted our moods and if you know me at all, you know I love cute shaped food! Our pups loved them too. Shhh, I spoil my babes.

What are you loving right now?

xo,

Beca