Pupkindoodles!
There are six VERY special little girls who live at my house. I love them more than anything on earth and they are my best buddies. They are my pets! We have four dogs and two cats. I have started making them treats at home occasionally and they love them! Actually, the dogs love them, and the cats are curious but suspicious. If I made them treats regularly I would have to make them just about every day!
People ask me all the time how we ended up with all these pets and why they are all girls. Truthfully, it just happened. I really just LOVE animals and my deepest desire is for all of them to have a warm, loving home. Here’s the breakdown of how all my girls came home…
My senior year of college I wanted a kitten… and then I ended up with two. I didn’t want them to be lonesome! Janie and Emmie. Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson. (English major) Janie is an orange tabby and Emmie is a tortoiseshell. Emmie is so smart and is an expert hunter. She brings me “gifts” (see: dead animals) all the time and even knows how to open drawers and cabinets! Janie loves to meow and wants you to know when she’s hungry… which is all the time. Janie LOVES almond milk and begs for it!
After college, I wanted a dog. A mutual friend told me about a breeder and that’s how I found Eloise! She is a toy schnauzer. She is cute as a button and she knows it! She follows people around at the dog park until they tell her how cute she is! I love how she follows me around everywhere I go. Everyone loves Eloise and she has the CUTEST personality!
After I had Eloise about six months, a friend of mine told me her husband found a puppy out by the airport. I didn’t want him to take her to a kill shelter, so I decided to “foster” her. Foster fail! I fell so deeply in love with her. She is mine and I am hers forever. My sweet Milly was just a teeny tiny little thing. She was covered in ticks and emaciated. I don’t think she could have been more than 6 weeks old and honestly, I don’t believe she would have lived much longer. She was the WILDEST puppy but now she is the world’s greatest dog. She is so protective of her mommy and is never more than a foot away from me. She always has a smile on her face and knows exactly how lucky she is.
When my husband and I met, he had a Weimaraner named Stormy! She wasn’t so sure about me at first but now we’re best buddies! Stormy is wild but has calmed down a lot since she has gotten older! She will eat ANYTHING, literally anything. She is so interested in the kitties! She doesn’t know she isn’t a lap dog, but we let her think she is. She falls asleep sitting up and makes us laugh all the time!
3 months before we got engaged, I was driving down a windy road in the rain, talking to the Lord. I said, “Jesus, show me what you want me to do with my life.” I was at a crossroads in my life. Right then, a little bitty dog ran out in front of me. I find dogs on the side of the road more often than I would like to admit, and always reunite them with their owners. I walked up to her slowly and gently said hello to her. She ran up to me and jumped right into my arms. This always makes me cry because she just wanted a mama to love her. And she found one! She didn’t have a collar, so I took her to a vet up the road to check for a microchip and she didn’t have one either. I posted about her on social media and no one claimed her- LUCKILY for us! She was a skinny little girl and was very anxious. She became our sweet Piper. We struggled for quite a while to get her healthy but now she is healthy and happy!
We are so incredibly blessed by these babies. They are so intuitive, and their energy is so calming to me. They know when their mommy really needs snuggles. They know when I’m sad. They, too, are sad when I’m sad. They are happy when I’m happy. They experience simple joy daily. They want nothing more than to please me and I just want to give them a percentage of the happiness they’ve given me. I do believe the Lord planned for these sweet girls to be in my life when I struggled with infertility. They gave me hope in a dark time. They made me feel like a mom when, according to the guidelines of this world, I wasn’t a mom. I love caring for these sweet little loves and I am truly just so lucky that they chose me.
I developed this little treat for my girls after doing a bit of research about what pups can and cannot have, coupled with what I already knew about their sensitive little bellies. It’s important not to add baking soda or baking powder because they are leavening agents and can cause a dangerous chemical reaction in their tummies. These are superfood treats for dogs (with a cat option) and they absolutely love them! The cats act like they aren’t interested but they can’t fool me. I know they like them!
Preheat your oven to 325 and combine whole wheat flour, peanut butter, oats, eggs, and pumpkin in a large bowl. Make sure your peanut butter does not contain the dangerous (to dogs) ingredient xylitol. This will make a wet dough.
This makes a very large batch! I used some to make a birthday cake for Stormy last week because it was her birthday! So, I used about half for the cake and rolled out the other half. If it feels too wet to roll out, add a little more flour. I rolled mine out to about a half an inch in thickness on a silicone baking mat, for easy cleanup. Then I used cookie cutters to cut many different sized “cookies.”
I lined several cookie sheets with parchment paper and dropped the cookies on there. You could totally eat these at this point, but they aren’t very tasty to humans. I tried one once. It was just kind of bland. But the pups love them!
To make these cat-friendly, I added about half a can of tuna to the batter. It smells terrible, but they love tuna. I made the kitty ones even smaller than the smallest cookie cutter I have.
Bake these cookies in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown. The cake took about 30 minutes to cook through. My sweet baby girls absolutely adore these treats! Please let me know what your pets think of these!
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
- 1/3 cup peanut butter (without xylitol)
- 3 eggs
- 1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
- 1/2 can tuna, for cats