From good to great

The girl who made me an aunt has gone even further. As of 7:00 p.m today I am a great aunt. I was always such a miserable one before. My mother is now a great-grandmother, my sister is a grandmother, and my little niece Segulah is a mother to a healthy baby boy with a squashed nose!

Kosher dog training treats

It was Y's idea to make Linda's treats 'meatier'. They smell more fishy which is a good thing from Linda's point of view. That makes them high value incentives for obedience training.

Kosher parve tuna dog treats - makes over 120 little biscuits
Preheat oven to 180, grease two cookie trays.

1 can of tuna in oil - drain off most of the oil
1 medium carrot sliced
1/2 cup seed mix (sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, flax etc.)
1 egg
1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour

Mix all ingredients except flour in food processor until carrot and seeds are pretty well ground up. Add all the flour and process until dough forms a ball around the blade. The dough will be soft and a bit sticky. With damp hands form tiny little balls - about 11/2 cm in diameter (here' s where little human helpers come in handy). Place the balls on the greased tray. Push down on each ball with a finger or fork to flatten slightly. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Don't dry these out - they are supposed to be moist. Store in the fridge out of sight of the little humans or there won't be any left for the dog.

Training update

Armed with a bag of cookies (luckily my son Y. didn't eat them all) and instructions on dog training http://www.dog-obedience-training-review.com/ I set out on my night walk with Linda. She was starting to get the hang of not pulling when I ran out of cookies. But the walk went well, and I even got a beautiful pile of poo to scoop. Nothing else came out, and so when we got back to our yard, I walked around with her saying 'make a peepee', 'make a peepee'... and miraculously she did! Good dog!

Kosher dog biscuits

I read recently that turmeric is good for you. I guess it's good for Linda too. She liked these biscuits very much. Even licked up the crumbs that fell as she ate them.
Makes about 100 small biscuits.

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease two baking sheets.

1 can of tuna in oil. Don't drain.
1 tablespoon turmeric
2 eggs
1 cup of raw seeds (sesame, sunflower, flax, pumpkin... use your imagination).
2 cups of whole wheat flour.

Using a food processor, mix all the ingredients except the flour until smooth. Add the flour in two batches. Mix until a ball forms around the blade. Add flour if necessary.

Roll in small balls, place on baking tray and press down with a finger to flatten slightly.
Alternatively, roll out dough on a floured surface to about 1cm thick and use a cookie cutter to make fancy shapes. Any leftover bits can be rerolled once. After that, just feed the leftover bits to the dog raw.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Leave in oven to harden overnight. Take some out immediately for the little humans to taste.

Linda and carpets

The dog is not housetrained. Not at all. I take her for a long, long walk a few hours after eating and she doesn't eliminate anything outside. Then we walk into the house, I let her out of sight for a second and she goes on the only carpet we haven't rolled up! Aargh!
I haven't been able to catch her in the act even once and I know each time she eliminates in the house, she's training herself to go again in the house.

She is so cute though - and here you can see the picture I took when DH met Linda for the first time when Y, N and I brought her home. (Note carpet on floor. Has been removed.)

How far would you drive to get this dog?

Meet Linda. A dog so cute that I drove 3 hours up to Gan Ner on Friday to get her. My son Y. (12 years old) was surfing the sites of the various shelters and humane societies in Israel when he came accross the posting for this 8 month old mutt. We were all smitten. Linda at four months was saved from the dog catcher by the angel of Gilboa's dogs, Anna Mostkov who runs what seems to me, to be a one woman 'not for profit' dog shelter out of her home in Gan Ner. http://www.gilboadogs.co.il/

I feel a bit guilty being so ungreen adopting a dog from far when there are hundreds of dogs in the Jerusalem shelter who need homes. But Linda needed a good home too, and she's really such a good dog!

Pequenina 1990-2008

Pequenina's been gone now for over a month. I'm ok and I'm not ok. Probably anyone who has gone through a loss will understand what I mean.
Here's what I wrote about her back then on June 16th:

Pequenina was born October 1990. The neighbours who found her called her Carpet - but appearances or no, I quickly changed her name to Baruch's love name for me: 'little one'. I promised Pequenina that she would be mine and well taken care of as long as she lived. She promised to stay in my heart as long as I lived. Pequenina hated having her beautiful long blond hair brushed; she loved grapes, chicken and day old cheese sandwiches. When she was young she would run around the park so fast you could barely see her. She put up with 2 babies invading her life, our various moves, her blindness and occasionally being left with her grandparents who would lavish love and lots of grooming on her. Pequenina was a good dog and I'll miss her so much. - Rachel; June 16 2008

Tomorrow I'll be going up to a town near Afula to pick up our new dog. I'll write about that some other day. But today I wanted to talk about Pequenina. Thank-you for listening.