Doggie Daycare Woes & Rewards

Normally Josh and my schedules work pretty well in terms of taking care of Teddy.  Josh is out of the house early - before I'm even up, so when I get up I walk Teddy, feed him, play with him a bit and then he hangs out with me while I'm getting ready for work.  I leave the house around 8:15am, so at that point I put him in his playpen with plenty of toys, a bowl of water and a couple of teething treats.  Josh is usually home around 4pm or so from the hospital, so he'll take Teddy out, walk him and play with him for awhile.  A few hours later Josh either goes to the gym or to the library and is home by 7pm, which is when I get home.  At that point one of us feeds Teddy his dinner and then I get started on dinner for us.

However, every 4 workdays Josh is now on call at the hospital.  This means that he basically has to stay until the residents say he can leave.  Sometimes he gets out at 5pm and sometimes it's 9pm (at least it's not overnight like in surgery!).  Anyway, on these days I have to put Teddy in doggie day care since there's a chance that I'll be the first one home at 7pm, and Teddy can't be in his pen for 11 hours straight.  There's a cute doggie day care that we use that's right by the train so it works out well.

Yesterday I dropped Teddy off at day care around 8am.  Teddy was not happy about this.  It broke my heart hearing his little whimpers and seeing his big sad eyes.  However, I pried myself away in time to make my train, knowing that I would see him when I got home from work.  The dogs at daycare need to be picked up by 7pm.  My normal train gets me to the train station near the day care by about 6:40, but of course, the train was delayed yesterday.  I called the daycare to let them know, and they said my poor little baby was the only one left to be picked up!   I wound up getting to the daycare at EXACTLY 7pm.  Teddy was very excited to see me, and very happy to leave daycare.  I felt so awful that he was the last one there - it brought back memories to grade school when your parents would be running late and the teacher had to stay with you until they got there. 

When we got home I decided to bake Teddy some home-made all natural doggie biscuits to make up for the day (and some roasted chicken didn't hurt either).  Teddy has since forgiven and forgotten the whole day and is back to his usual happy self.

Whole Wheat Doggie Biscuits:

• 1 cup old fashion oatmeal
• 1 stick margarine
• 1 teaspoon chicken or beef bouillon
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 3/4 cup powdered milk
• 3/4 cup corn meal
• 1 egg
• 3 cups whole wheat flour

First, combine the oatmeal, margarine and bouillon in a bowl and add the 1 cup hot water.  Let the ingredients sit for 5 minutes.  Next, powdered milk, corn meal and egg.  Mix ingredients together and start adding the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing completely each time.  Once all the flour has been added, knead dough for 3-4 minutes.  At the end you're going to want a firm dough, so you may need to add some more flour depending how sticky your dough is.  (I did this whole recipe in my kitchen aide mixer, so I was able to add the flour while the mixer went to work and then just change to the kneading attachment to knead the dough).  After the dough has come together, roll into a  disc about a 1/2" thick.  Using a cute doggie cookie cutter, cut the biscuits and place them on a foil lined and greased tray.  Bake treats at 300 degrees for about 50 minutes.  They should be hard and crisp.  Make sure you wait for them to cool before you give them to your four-legged children (Teddy did NOT want to wait - I had to break one up and blow on it for him).

As a side note, these are completely edible and natural.  You could eat them too if you wanted!  Josh tried one... he said it tasted like whole wheat pizza crust.