How to get a Picky Dog to Eat

You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but there is certainly a way to get your picky dog to eat!  And it doesn't involve dog food. It involves human food.

Meet Faye, our wonderful baby girl and the star of her own book, What Faye Loves.  Well, it turns out, one of the things Faye loves...is being incredibly food picky.  So for the first 3 years of her life we tried over 15 different kinds of dog food across all spectrums: dry, wet, raw, frozen, freeze dried, and even the order online kind (e.g. Farmer's Dog).  No matter what we did, she either turned up her nose at the new food right away or within days or weeks.  On the rare occasion, the food gave her diarrhea and we actively chose to try a new food, because that's not good for her.  She's now four years old and eating smoothly, morning and night.  She's been eating smoothly for upwards of six months now, but it took me months of having to hand feed her wet and frozen dog food at every feeding all while crying because she refused to eat and would vomit instead because she was hungry.  I felt like I had failed as a dog parent.

But I remembered when we would travel she would love and survive on bits of human food - steak, turkey, cheese, carrots - and so an idea popped into my brain. I thought, what if that's just what she wants to eat?!  And so I set out to try.

Now, if you find yourself in a similar situation, listen to your dog and your dog's system.  My perfect combo may not be your dog's perfect combo, but after a little trial and error I am certain you'll find the right mix!  We tried: cooked (but not seasoned) stead, eggs, turkey, and ham.  I already knew both of my dogs can't do chicken.  We also tried: buttered or olive oil roasted carrots, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash.  And we already knew she loved cheese and cooked (but again unseasoned) oatmeal.

So after much trial and error, Faye's new meals are:

THE STAPLES

- turkey (unseasoned, but you can buy the turkey breast fully cooked at places like Costco and Sam's.  Try to stay away from deli meat because of the added salt and deli-counter meat often has seasoning on the outside.  But if you like, you can also cook a raw full turkey in the oven.  again, unseasoned)

- buttered carrots, roasted in the oven at 350 for 30 min.  (Faye, being the wonderfully picky delight that she is, prefers the carrots peeled over the already sliced rectangular ones, so I get a giant Costco sized bundle of carrots and peel and cut and cook 6-7 carrots at a time.  I add about 2 tbsp of butter to that, and it usually lasts me 1-2 weeks.  She gets about 7-8 pieces per meal)

THE ADD INS

- sometimes I add in (1) cheese (2) cooked (but unsweetened / seasoned) oatmeal or (3) roasted sweet potatoes or zucchini, cut into chunks, and tossed in olive oil only, then baked at 350 for 20-50 min, depending on how much is in there and how long it takes to soften everything.

Best of luck to you and your picky eater!

VOTE!

 It's voting season!  It overlaps so beautifully with the fall season, for those who love both.  Most places have opened early voting by now, so be sure to take the time to find your polling location and get your voice heard!

Remember the Little Moments are Great

Was sitting outside yesterday evening with my family, watching the giant forest trees sway in the wind, appreciating how magical the sound of swirling trees could be and how much they, like the sounds of the ocean, remind me that there are bigger things than me in the world.  It was that moment that I also found myself appreciating my life more than I had at any other point all day.  I told my husband, "I love our life" and when he asked if there was anything specific, I replied with all the seemingly obvious or mundane things: having a yard (coming from a condo), backing up to the forest, seeing the forest animals, having our own home, living somewhere where we have such great evenings, our dogs, our time together, etc.  Nothing from the list stood out as striking or "incredible", but that's exactly the point.  We need to remember to love and appreciate and be grateful for the seemingly normal and mundane, because those incredible moments are the ones that make up our life.

Some other things I find I love and look forward to because we have made them special:

- Special Coffee Fridays: we used to make this our Starbucks day, but since we work remotely now we make this our start of our Nespresso Weekend tradition.  I find I wake up Friday mornings excited because I get the 'special' coffee.

- Friday Lunch Takeout:  we spend most of the week eating and making food we have in the house.  But Friday lunch we treat ourselves to take out, usually of a sizable enough portion that it becomes lunch and dinner.  These tend to rotate between tacos, sushi, and pizza, but every now and again we'll try something new.

- Saturday Morning Movies: Sometimes we find we are busy doing individual things and errands not he weekends, so Saturday morning is when we come together to drink coffee, have food (take out or homemade) and watch shows.  Usually around 10/11 am we start a movie.  If not, we just marathon a few episodes of a show we are watching together.

- Afternoon Treat Playtime: Our two dogs get "treat balls" (or these treat ball / puzzle things that they have to roll and bite etc to figure out how to release all the treats inside).  Every afternoon they get them.  I love taking the few minutes out of my day to watch them fill with excitement and think and work hard to get every last treat out of their toy.  It's so rewarding to watch someone else fill with joy.

So, I implore you to keep finding ways to appreciate and acknowledge all the little moments in life that are so paramount to your everyday but also foundational to your happiness.  Share your little joys with us!

Stop "If I Could Just"-ing Your Life

As the new year came around, I started doing all my "new year" routings: thinking about all the things we could do in 2022, planning our 2022 budget, looking at needs -vs- wants, etc.  And as I started through my list, the first few weeks of the year past.  Suddenly it was middle-end of January, and the questions started.  

"Are we going to (blank)?"

"When can we (blank)?"

"What about (blank)?"

"Can we get (blank)?"

And in response to them all, I found myself saying "As soon as...." and "If we can just get to...." THEN we can do XYZ.

After a few days of that I found myself a tad dumbstruck.  It's not for poor planning or uninformed intentions, and I'm a full proponent of taking control of your life so you can live the life you want (which sometimes means putting off the immediate gratification for the long-term dream), but EVERYTHING I was responding to included those phrases.

So I took a moment and stepped back and really looked at what I was saying and how I was thinking about 2022.  Not everything can wait.  Not everything should wait.  Sometimes, some things are just "do now and enjoy" things.   And that's what I wanted to relay.  Stop "If I could just"-ing your life and live it.  Now.  If you "If I could just get that raise" or "If I can just make it to next week with what I have" or "If I could just get a nice day out so we could be outside to do those thing", you'll find you spend more time waiting and less time enjoying.  It won't always be perfect, and it won't always be the way you imagine.  So maybe you get the burger without the large fry and drink, but you get to enjoy your favorite burger.  Maybe you finally buy the lawnmower because yours has been on the fritz for two years and in the long run it will make everything better.  Maybe you just call that person back and appreciate the gaps in the familial relationship and stop waiting for him or her to make the move.  Maybe you start saving for retirement - not as much as you had wanted, but at least it's something!

There's always "something else".  Gratitude means appreciating what you have (now, not later).  So to really enjoy 2022, I hope for you that you can stop "if I could just"-ing your life, and find the joy in living it now.