Frugal dog food and Charlie

Our little poodle Charlie, is getting on a bit.  He's getting on a lot actually.  In the 8 or 9 years we've had him since finding him abandoned, with over-grown fur full of fleas, and an aversion to men with stick shaped things in their hands, he has calmed right down and become such a sweetie and much loved member of the family.  Well, I love him, even though the cats seem to cast their spooky spell over the rest of the family...I digress.

Charlie has always been a bit scratchy, a bit inflamed on the ears and feet, and I realised early on that it was probably the dog food I was giving him.  The vet agreed with me, but no matter what, Charlie would not eat the very-expensive-but-good-for-him dry food although he would quite happily scrump the cats' dry biscuit food.

So, after much consultation with vet/internet, I devised my own food for him: 40% chicken, 20% veg such as carrots/beans/peas and 40% rice and couscous, with a couple of spoons of powered eggshell for extra calcium, and he also gets a bit of sardine or mackerel when we have some for lunch.  Sometimes I chuck on a couple of little biscuity things too, just for a bit of a change.

About once a month, I boil up chicken legs in the pressure cooker until the bones soften, pick off all the meat, add the veg, rice etc, and measure it out into foil containers - 180 grams a go - and then into the freezer.  It costs me about a frugal 25 to 30 centimes a day, which can't be bad.  I love doing it for Charlie because I love him, and he doesn't scratch his skin anymore.

Win-win!

Well, it would be win-win, but he has suddenly got bored with his food and has started scrumping the cats' dry stuff again.  Sigh...

Spring bulbs

Very pleased with this pot of bulbs - there is another identical pot on the other side of the door, but to get the picture, I had to take FIVE like this one:

The trouble with our animals, they are all so nosy and always want to see what I'm pointing the camera at!

Wet and windy Christmas

Hope you all enjoyed Christmas!  We had a lovely day, but the weather took a turn for the worst so we didn't get a walk with the dog in time.  The heavens opened for literally one minute, resulting in hailstones - here is a piccie showing the stones after a few seconds of rain so it isn't really as impressive as it was at first.

Charlie has really got the hang of opening his presents (usually just a chew) and here he is doing just that.  Trouble is, sometimes he buries them under the cushions on the sofa.

 And here is the Christmas cake our daughter made - the first Royal iced cake she has done.  I think she made a great job of it, but we still don't know what it tastes like as we never seem to have any room to eat it.  It weighs nearly 4 kilos...should keep us going in cake well into spring!