Cooking for Izzie

For those days when I'm too tired to cook, we've found a chef for Izzie.
I have given up trying to get Izzie to eat dog food. I have two books on cooking for your dog and since she just loves whatever I eat, I think her last years should not involve nightly fights (which she usually wins) over what she eats. Tonight she had roasted chicken, brown rice and some bing cherries (one of the few fruits she likes). This week we've had ground lamb patties, sweet potato, Swiss chard, pork tenderloin, sweet corn, summer squash (you get the idea) She doesn't like eggplant, though. I've been sprinkling vitamins on her meat and have seen a definite improvement in her ability to do stairs and jumping on furniture this past week. We had a good long walk today and she managed it without balking. So her dried food is just there for snacking, should she choose to want some.

Izzie was four when we became companions. I don't know much about her history before then, but it's been a real struggle for the past seven years to get her to eat anything except people food. There are a few veggies she doesn't like, but mostly if I fix meat or fish, something starchy and some veggies she will wolf it down. She really likes the cabbage family of vegetables and sweet potatoes. Pasta is her favorite starch, although rice will do if it has butter on it. One of the books said to give her equal portions of meat and vegetable and double that of starch, which is what I do.

Here's a recipe for Canine Lasagna that Izzie (and her doggie friends) like:

1 pound (minced) ground turkey cooked until browned.

1-15 oz. jar spaghetti sauce

some garlic powder (optional)

oregano (optional)

1 lb. elbow macaroni cooked

1 lb low fat cottage cheese

2 cups grated cheddar cheese.

Put a third of the spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a casserole dish (add oregano and garlic to sauce if using)

1. Top that with 1/2 the pasta
2. Spread half the cottage cheese and then half the cheddar on top of the pasta.
3. Add another third of the spaghetti sauce.

Repeat 1,2,3.

Cover with aluminum foil

Bake for about 30-40 minutes in a moderate oven (350°F)

I usually cut this into portions and freeze some for later use.

It's not bad people food either, although I prefer it with some onions cooked. Izzie tolerates onions quite well, but a lot of dogs don't. Izzie had an Australian Shepherd friend named Sydney that decided I was ok after I fixed her this one day.

Suryia and Roscoe—From the Rare Species Fund

My friend Robert, who posts occasionally at Chaplinesque, and who is a Yank in Australia, pointed me to this. It's delightful.


What in human terms we would call generosity and love shown by Suryia the orangutan to this dog is heart-warming and that the dog would have no fear is amazing.

Beware of the Dogs

I don't recall ever paying much attention to this psalm in Edward Hays' Psalms for Zero Gravity before. In his reflection on the psalm he speaks not of people who are unbelievers, but those who are supposed to be followers of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Beware of the Dogs Psalm

Beware of the watchdogs of religion,

how viciously they bark and bite.

Dobermans of dogma, thirsty for blood,

Bible defender, guard dogs of the literal.

Beware of the growling, heresy-hunting dogs

prowling orthodoxy's rigid chain-link fences.

Beware of the dogged bird dogs,

whose prey is the Spirit Dove in free flight.

Chained by fears, they are repelled

by the freedom and liberty of love.

Beware, for they relentless sniff out the new,

the Spirit's scent of novelty.

Beware of the snarling dogs of war,

with the blood of God's wrath

dripping from the corners of their fanged mouths,

from countless crusades,

bloodbaths and heretics aflame.

Beware of those who ravaged and shredded

with their sharp teeth

the apostles and prophets of old.

As Jesus said, rejoice, but also beware.

Comment:  Reading MadPriest's Homophobe of the Day posts and all the stuff that is going on in our Anglican Communion and my sadness of the news of yesterday from California on Prop 8, this psalm seems most appropriate.  The Dobermans of Dogma and Guard Dogs of the Literal are out there, beware. 

I apologize to all the sweet dobermans out there.  I know you are not all mean and if you are it is probably a human who is responsible.  Isabelle, my sweet little dog, who loves anybody who brings treats and doesn't care a fig about church politics, pardon me, but I think I still need to say with Hays "Beware of the Dogs."

Izzie's New Hero

Izzie's got a new hero.  Check out the story on her blog. Izzie loves to wander but there's no way she could take down a baby goat. Anyway goats don't run wild here.  She's more likely to run into bear, moose, deer and bobcat and some of those might like her for lunch.  And swimming isn't her thing either. It's a good thing Sophie Tucker lives so far away though, the old dog might learn new tricks.

Posting for Isabelle

I posted something for Izzie on her own blog.  You can find it at Ruminations of a Church Dog Right now she's sleeping on my foot. She does that to make sure I don't somehow leave without her knowing it. She does have abandonment issues. I probably would too if I'd been given up for adoption twice, once at two and once at age four.  She really hates cages.