Taste Test: Blue Buffalo vs Canidae

While we have double the dogs we usually have, we thought it'd be interesting to do a little dog food comparison & see which dog food is preferred. Our dogs (which we'll call the White Team since they're both white) normally eat Canidae and the visiting dogs (which we'll call the Black Team since they're both black) normally eat Blue Buffalo. Both are high-quality dry dog foods that are similar enough that we (and the owners of Dex & Sam) agreed that it'd be ok to have a bowl of each brand of food available to all four dogs.

First Day: All 4 dogs ate like there was no tomorrow! Seriously, they ate twice as much as they usually do. The White team (aka our dogs) ate Blue Buffalo almost exclusively. Black team (aka the visitors) ate Canidae almost exclusively. Both bowls were almost completely empty at the end of the day. While the dogs were extremely active, I think part of the encreased eating was due to having something new since each chose the food he/she didn't normally receive.

Second Day: Food consumption returned to normal. All 4 dogs returned to eating their own brand, and at the end of the day both bowls were still half full. The dogs were not as active today since the excitement of having each other around had abated. Funny that the "new" wore off this fast, both with having new companions & with having different food. All 4 are happy & content, playing and napping.

Double the Dogs!

As you know, we normally have two dogs here at our house. Right now we have FOUR! That's right, Polly & Garcia have houseguests. Dexter and Sammy, 2 little black Shih-tzus are visiting. I'm sure I'll have some pics posted of the 4 of them before the visit is over.

We brought them home with us yesterday morning & Polly & Garcia were SO excited! We walked in the front door with Dexter & Sammie and headed straight through the house & out the back door with Polly & Garcia joining us along the way. The 4 of them ran around like maniacs in the back yard while Mike & I rolled around laughing. It was the cutest/funniest thing you've ever seen! We then came in & everyone under 2 ft tall got a treat. We thought they'd all then take a rest, but NOPE, they were still way too excited for that! The 4 of them ran around in the house, pulled out all the toys, hopped up & looked out the windows, and had a grand time.

Sammie, the baby, was SO excited about having a fenced yard in which to run that he scratched at the door (his way of saying he needs to go out) about every half hour. He got to go outside lots & lots, & the other 2 boys went with him just about every time. Pollyanna decided to hang with the humans instead, and just went out at her "normal" times.

We could not believe how active the 4 of them were all afternoon and evening! When it came time for bed they did really well though, settling right down to sleep without the whispering & giggling I remember from having tiny human sleep-overs. :-)

Today the four have alternated between playing & napping - I think they wore themselves out yesterday. Wonder what they'll do tomorrow?

The First of my YAWYK Items Left Today!

Today I did my first papercrafting of 2011: I made a card & sent it with a bunch of stickers to a little preschooler and her big sister. (Should've taken a pic of the card but didn't... but at least I made the card LOL!)

Items used: 3 small Sizzix cardstock sheets, 1 ribbon, 1 blank card, and some epoxy alphabet stickers. I'm counting all the letters as one item rather than counting each one individually, so that makes a total of 6 items used for making the card. (I'm not counting adhesives.)

I enclosed:
24 little sheets of stickers (the sheets that are 3-5" square that you buy from a roll)
and 2 mini-scrapbooking kits.

SO... 6 items used on the card + 26 items given away = 32 items out of the house! Just 1,979 to go to reach my goal of sending 2011 craft items out of the house in 2011. That's kind of daunting, but if Ann Marie can do it I can do it! (See Ann, you've inspired me!)