pet connection

Last night I went to a friend’s annual Academy Awards party. The hosts have a number of contests and prizes, and the most hotly contested is “Most Creative Dish.” Everyone brings a dish that is named or based on a nominated movie or actor.  This year I took a turn from my dog’s treats.  If you’ve ever baked healthy treats for your dog (and if you haven’t, I love Liz Palika’s The Ultimate Dog Treat Cookbook, Howell, $14.99), you may own cookie cutters shaped like dog bones. Your dog doesn’t care what shape the treats are and would happily eat them if they looked like poop. The shape is something we use because we like it.

Using that cookie cutter, I baked sugar cookies. Some of them were layered with vanilla frosting in-between two, like an Oreo, and some I left plain. I called them Milk Boners, cream-filled or naked.

Heh heh.

I didn’t win, but the cookies garnered some votes.  Some luscious Thai-type chicken dish won; it tasted terrific and was served on a platter with a bamboo hut.  Compared to that, it’s easy to see why some sugar cookies didn’t win. It took me so long to make all the cutout cookies that we never made it to the dog park <oops> so a couple of dogs are feeling their oats today. Nonetheless, the Milk Boners made a lot of people laugh, and that was good enough for me.

Baking was also a personal triumph, since the Counter-Surfing Setter did not manage to illicitly steal one single cookie. Not one!  Why? Because I have finally remembered not to leave food on the edge of the counter. If you deny access to Counter- Surfing Setters, you deny them reinforcement. This is not something people who have only had dogs with four-inch long legs think about, but given enough experience you can train yourself. And once you have successfully trained yourself, treat yourself with a bone-shaped cookie.

Share & Enjoy

Facebook	Twitter	Google Buzz	Digg
Technorati	StumbleUpon	Delicious	Email