Guilty Dog Mom...

Among other "runnings around" yesterday (that I will talk about later, I promise), we had to take poor Rosie to the vet for a check up and her shots (all way over due).  She'll be 11 years old in September, so we opted for the "Best Care Senior Wellness Checkup", which means they charged us three arms and 6 legs to run blood, urine, fecal tests, as well as take some x-rays too.  With her shots (Bordetella, Rabies, Parvo, and Distemper) the bill for the afternoon was over $400!

We knew she had some bad teeth, but last time we were there, we just could not afford the $400 (or so) per tooth they wanted!  We had to borrow money from Garrick's parents to have our kitty cremated (I know it sounds silly but the alternative was not getting her back at all)!  Yes, it really has been that long since we took the dog in to the vet...at least for a full check up (she was there about 18 months ago for shots when we had her boarded last time).  So, now her teeth are really bad!  We are waiting for a call from the vet today with the blood work results and a price estimate on her teeth (I expect this to be in the thousands of dollars...).  In the mean time though, we have chosen to take Rosie off of her normal diet of dry dog food and just "plump her up" on wet food.  We do have a single can left over from several weeks ago when we were trying to coax her to eat the dry food by mixing some wet in with it, but at 2am last night I had the brilliant idea to use our leftovers to make her a soft food that she would really enjoy (and I could stand the smell of)!

Rosie's Doggy Heaven Breakfast:

• 2 ice cubes frozen Pureed Pumpkin
• 1 small handful frozen Celery (pre diced)
• 1/2 cup of frozen peas
• 1/2 cup frozen green beans
• ~1/3 cup prepared Country Gravy (we buy a powder that you mix with water and "cook" for a few minutes on the stovetop)
• Large helping of leftover Jasmine Rice (from our dinner several nights ago)
• 2 Hard-boiled Eggs (from our girls outside, I keep these pre-peeled and in a jar of water in the fridge)
• 1 RAW Egg (again from the girls!)
• A little of the cooking water from the veggies

I started by microwaving the pumpkin for 30 seconds, then swapped bowls an put the frozen peas and green beans in another bowl with some water and popped those in the microwave for about 2 minutes.  To the pumpkin, I added the celery to thaw it out and cool the pumpkin down a bit.  Meanwhile, I prepared the gravy (I made a half batch, just enough for 2 meals for the dog) on the stove.

After the veggies came out of the microwave, I strained them, but saved the cooking water, and added them to her dog bowl with the pumpkin/celery mix.  Next, I added the rice, I just broke this up the the bag (a ziploc for easy access) and dumped about half of what we had in the bowl (to help cool the hot veggie mix down.  Next, I added the gravy and stirred.  To help up the protein in this, I quickly diced up a couple of hard-boiled eggs and stirred them in (no pre-cooked meat or that would have been good too).  I added a bit of the cooking water because it looked really "dry" to me.  Lastly, I cracked a raw egg over the bowl and gave one last good stir!

All in all, this filled about half of her dog bowl and she gobbled up the whole thing (I assume) and is now hapily asleep at my feet 5 minutes after putting the bowl down for her!