Happy Birthday, Kyrie!

For Kyrie's second birthday we wanted to make little chicken cakes...like crab cakes but with chicken! Our housemate John suggested doing them in a cupcake pan...and they became "Pupcakes"!


First I chopped two raw chicken breasts and added some shredded cheese.


Then I added one egg and mixed it all together. A little bit of flour was added to stiffen the mixture; you could also use other things if your dog was allergic to grains. Ground up kibble might work?


The mixture was spooned into cupcake spaces treated with a little bit of oil so they would come out easily after baking. I also could have used butter or another type of fat, I'm thinking. I put them in an oven pre-heated to 400 degrees, the temp I would normally cook chicken breasts at.


I kept them in for twenty minutes, until the juices running out were clear. I took them out and put a knife in one to make sure they were done. Then I let them cool for five minutes before dumping them out onto a cookie sheet lined with baking paper.


I took a Kraft Single and tore it into thin strips and made crosses for the tops, just to dress them up! Then I put them back into the 400 degree oven for two minutes, to melt the cheese on.


Here are the pupcakes!!!


I put them on a bed of dry kibble since they were not enough of a portion to be dinner by themselves.


Then I mashed them so that they would cool faster and so the dogs would find it easier to eat them. The juices flavored the dry kibble a bit this way, too.


The final touch: Kyrie's favorite, a little bit of cottage cheese for a topper!


All dogs cleaned their bowls in record time!! Happy Birthday, Kyrie!!

Our Surprise for the October Show!

When our local Shiloh Chapter, the CSSC, arranged a regional Shiloh Specialty at the Oklahoma City IABCA show, we knew we would need to put together a basket for the fundraiser auction. I thought that a special treat basket would be nice, something no one could get around here. Luckily, my husband flies to Indianapolis every week, and north of Indy in Carmel, IN, they have a DOG BAKERY!


There are all sorts of different biscuits and treats that they make by hand! There are cheese and bacon and even venison-flavored ones!


I was out shopping for a container for our biscuits to go in and then I thought, "Well, why not give a bunch of samples of other treats that our dogs like, too?" So then a buying spree ensued, and I had all these treats and a couple of containers. And then I thought, "Hmmm, I could make up little sample trick or treat bags for EACH DOG!" Thus followed a Hobby Lobby shopping spree hard on the heels of the treat-buying one. At the end of the day as I sat down at 10 p.m. to construct everything I had six different kinds of treats plus all the flavors of biscuits, two fancy containers and a bunch of gift bags. Here is a shot of all the treats and also the little ziplock packages for the little bags. Each ziplock has six different types of treats, just a few of each. They are sealed with autumn stickers. (I failed to resist the urge to be cute. Just wait. It gets worse.)


While at the Hobby Lobby I was struck by a mad urge to go crazy. This happens to me often at Hobby Lobby. The result was several spools of Halloween ribbon, black and orange pipe cleaners, yellow and orange tissue paper, a bunch of stickers, and small wooden pumpkins. Too cute? Too silly? Too orange??? Will Ken want to die when I hand him one of these for Big Jake??

Absolutely! But did I care, at midnight when I finished this? Heck no! Following you can see samples. Below the assembly has just started.


Below you can see several wooden pumpkins with the names of Shilohs (and others!) written on them, some attached to bags and some still waiting for their pipe cleaners!


The bags are growing in number...almost done now!!


And finally, had to put this one in--my black cat, Pan (Panther) snuck into the photo and I didn't even notice as I shot it! Very seasonal of him, I've got to say.


Well the bags are done and I'm going to post a link to this on the forum and hit bed...gotta get up early tomorrow to pack the Element (also orange, yes, are you noticing a theme?) and get up to Oklahoma! Wish us luck at the show, folks--more photos when we get back!!

New Kyrie Photos!

I put these up on our Facebook gallery but forgot to update the blog...silly me! Here are some photos of Kyrie at a year and a half old. :) The one up top is my all-time favorite stacked photo of her--it would be perfect, if only I weren't in the picture!!



We just got back from our Shiloh Shepherd National Specialty show last week, and Kyrie won TWO ribbons! Soon I'll be putting up photos of her with them and also pictures of another one of her brothers we hadn't seen before...Maxx! Stay tuned!

May and June Happenings!

In May, we had a booth at our local Canine festival, Dog Days of Denton! Dog Days gets over 9,000 people every year and is full of fun events, demonstrations, contests, and booths featuring doggy stuff of every kind! Here's a photo of our booth with my handsome husband Zak manning it before the show:


The festival was a great success for us!! We gave out around a hundred trifolds (thanks to the parents of the splendid Cody for bringing more!) and bunches of business cards! Two other Shilohs came to visit--Cody from Texas and Kaiser from Oklahoma! You can see pictures of them in our Picasa Albums gallery (click here). All in all it was a lot of fun and we will definitely do it again next year!!

Here is a purebred German Shepherd we met at the show--one of the very rare few who have the "Hobo dog" markings just like Kyrie! Proof that the coloration is still lurking in the GSD lines too, and isn't just due to the Malamute behind the Shilohs.


Those of you who have followed our blog for Leo know that we LOVE to take photos of our dogs playing! Well a couple weeks back Zak ordered them a huge soccer ball (I think it's from Orbee). We weren't sure they would like it because it was so big...but it was a great hit! I thought I would put the playtime pics up on Kyrie's blog for a change. Here is one right off the bat, as Kyrie grabs the ball before Leo!


She had to put on some pretty fancy moves to keep it away from Leo!!


Kyrie decided to lie down with it, but with the lurking Leo her respite didn't last long...


She did get it a couple more times...


But then Leo became Lord of the Ball!!



We hope you enjoyed the photos! If you're interested in taking a look at Leo's blog, click here! This weekend we'll be headed down to Hutto, Texas, for a dog show and Shiloh get-together with NINE of our fellow ISSR Shiloh Shepherds--stay tuned for photos when we get back!!

Kyrie -- All Grown Up!

Let the obligatory "Dog With Pants" pictures begin!


The big news for this month is that Kyrie has officially entered her first heat! Shiloh shepherds often come into their first heat a little later than smaller breeds, and Kyrie was a perfect example of this, going into heat at 15 months.

Now there are a few things we need to do. In order for Kyrie to pass muster for breeding so she can help in our genepool expansion, we must take her in for her height and weight assessment, we must have her hips x-rayed (and while we do that we will probably also do as many other health tests as possible), and she must pass her Temperament Test. Then all her paperwork must be updated accordingly. So we have a lot to do within the next four to six months if we want to have a chance at Kyrie/Leo puppies at the end of this year or the beginning of next!


So far Kyrie's heat has been no sweat. We bought her two sets of pants (thankfully we were able to find the denim ones so Kyr was not forced to wear a set of hot pink "hot pants") and have been using normal human sanitary pads in them (much cheaper than the ones made for them!). The heat started on the 16th of April. We noticed some blood drips on the floor and Zak made an emergency "pants run"! Now, thirteen days later, her bleeding is tapering off and becoming a straw color, pinkish/light tan. Here is Zak puttin' on the pants while Kyrie is a good girl and stands nicely!


Our boy Leo (you can see his blog here) has been very good during this whole thing! He lays outside of Kyrie's crate and whines a bit, and obviously wants to be with her, but he has been very well-behaved. We'll see if that lasts now that she is entering the "standing heat" period! We have laid pretty good groundwork for this period by spending a lot of individual time with our pups, so they are very used to one of them being in a kennel while the other is out. Since they are so used to it being this way, we have had no problem separating them during this period. They do miss running and playing together, though!!

Below you can see a back shot of Kyr. The sanitary pads we are using are up on the table behind her, if you are wondering what size fits the pants!


Many dogs lose their appetites when there is a bitch in heat nearby, but so far Leo is eating well, though he picks at the food a bit more before eating and it takes him longer to finish. Kyrie's appetite remains good! We have upped her food intake just a little, perhaps 5%, in accordance with the advice in a book recommended to us by Laura Kathryn of Solace Shilohs, one of our awesome ISSR Licensed Breeders. Kyrie is such a Skinny Minnie that I figured the extra calories couldn't hurt too much, even if she doesn't need them with all the changes in her body right now!

Finally, we bought Kyrie a new toy to celebrate. You can see how much she likes it in the following picture:


We hope you enjoyed Kyrie's latest blog update and we'll try to do another post soon!

Ear Brace Correction!

Just a quick post, here--my attention was drawn to the fact that I had named the wrong product in my ear-bracing post, The War of the Ear! I have now corrected that post to read "moleskin" instead of "molefoam". The foam is too thick and puts too much weight on the ear! The exact product we used was CVS pharmacy's "Moleskin Plus".

Thanks all! Kyrie says aroo-squeak to all her readers!

--Anne :)

A Day in the Sun!

Welcome back to Kyrie's blog! It was such a nice spring day we went outside to take some new pictures of Kyrie. :) We are very proud of our girl as this past month she graduated from her Basic Obedience class. We had "home-schooled" her up to that point but decided to do the class for socialization and testing with distractions. It has worked wonders for her confidence levels with people and dogs! Now we are in a beginning Rally class because our teacher decided we were advanced enough to skip intermediate obedience, and Kyrie is the youngest dog in the class. :)



Here are some pictures of Kyrie from today. I was lucky enough to catch her in a GREAT flying trot!



Is this Kyrie looking for her ball or Kyrie about to eat a dandelion?



This one was taken from far away but it is a good shot of her structure from the side so I kept it. :)



Kyrie caught in a rare moment of non-motion!



We hope you enjoyed our pictures, we will close with another one taken recently of Kyr with one of her favorite chew-toys!



Next up, I'm hoping to publish some discussion about Kyrie's obedience class and our thoughts on it, comparing it to other methods we have experienced or read about. Stay tuned!!