For Christmas, Dan got a book called Chow Hound.  And this morning I decided to give one of the recipes a try.

I chose Here Kitty, Kitty Tuna Pie (don’t let the name fool you…it’s a dog treat).  I picked this one simply because we had all of the ingredients in the house already.

Start by gathering your ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 Cup Low-Sodium Chicken Broth
• 2 Cans of Tuna
• 2 Tablespoons of Dried Parsley
• 1/2 Cup of Bread Crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Coat a 9-inch pie plate with Olive Oil.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the eggs and the chicken broth.

Throw in the Tuna.  If you’re using chunky (like me), I’d suggest you fork all of the pieces into smaller chunks.

Add the Parsley.  Mix it all together.

If you’re doing it right, your dogs should be standing at your feet already salivating over the treat you’re creating.

Pour the mixture into the pie plate, and sprinkle the bread crumbs evenly over the top.

Bake the pie for 45 minutes…or until the eggs are set and the bread crumbs turn golden brown.

Remove the pie from the oven and allow it to cool.  You can serve it warm or at room temperature.

I made little cookies out of ours.

Daniel has been coming home each day to take Beezus out to relieve herself, but even still she has been doing her business in her crate when we are at work.

Yesterday we started a new (exhausting) routine that we’re hoping with cure this shitting-where-you-sleep problem.  In the morning we wake up and feed the dogs.  Beezus gets taken out to do her business.  Then she gets taken out every hour until I leave for work.  After work we do the same on-the-hour kind of thing.  Once we go to sleep, I wake up at 1am to take her out, and Daniel wakes up at 4am to take her out.

I know that with Olive we were the kind of dog owners that over-analyze everything.  We Googled any problem we had with training, and changed up our routines if we found a website with new suggestions.  I’m hoping that right now we’re just being annoying dog owners again.

Like Olive, she’s a pug/beagle mix (puggle).  We’re getting her from the same place we got Olive.

Daniel wasn’t completely sold on the name Beezus, but I  got stubborn and said that I’m going to call her Beezus regardless of what he names her.

So we’re going to have a little puppy in the house again…and we’ll have to work on training a new dog.  But at least Olive will have a little sister to play with.  And how can you not fall in love with that face?

After my previous post about new dog names, Paul commented with:

Um, what happened to Basil?

Which is a question I’ve avoided here and on Twitter.  So I guess it’s time to give you the straight answer.

Dan and I brought Bazil the dog home on the Sunday before Memorial Day of this year.  He was a spunky chihuahua/pug.  He was about the same age as Olive, and he wasn’t fixed.

We had a couple of problems with him trying to mount Olive…but for the most part, they got along.

On the Tuesday after Memorial Day Daniel took Bazil to the Maricopa County Animal Control Facility (the pound) and had Bazil neutered. Tuesday night Bazil came home and seemed to be recovering properly.  Wednesday was a tough day…you could tell that Bazil was in some pain.  The pound didn’t give us any pain meds for him.

Thursday I came home from work during my lunch break, like usual, to check on the doggies and to take Bazil outside.  Bazil wasn’t as crate trained as Olive was, and we wanted to avoid accidents in the house.

When I left the house to go back to work, everything was fine.

Thursday after work I had planned on going to my mom’s house, and when I left the club I got a text from Daniel asking me to call him as soon as I got the chance because he had “sad news.”

When Daniel got home Bazil was really lethargic and didn’t jump up to greet him like he normally did.  Daniel figured out that something was seriously wrong with Bazil, so he ended up taking him to the emergency vet.

At the vet they told Daniel that it would be best to euthanize Bazil.  And we wouldn’t officially know what caused this unless we paid for an expensive puppy autopsy.  If they had to guess, the vet people told us, it could have been a bad reaction to the anesthesia or a blood clot from the surgery.  We’ll never really know.

If you didn’t know, Olive moved into our house in December 2007, and we kind of named her after Olive from “Olive The Other Reindeer.”  Which is a cute children’s book.  And I was thinking that it would be cute to name our new dog after a children’s book character.  Here are the names I came up with:

Hachiko is a cute name, but it’s a real dog’s name.

Ramona is one of my favorites…but Dan doesn’t love it.

I love the name “Beezus” too.  In the stories, Ramona’s sister was actually named Beatrice, but they called her “Beezus.”  Dan says that it sounds too much like “Jesus.”

I haven’t had the oppotunity to ask Dan if he likes this one.  But if he vetos Beezus and Ramona, my next number one is “Pippi.”  Isn’t it cute…”Let’s take Olive and Pippi to the dog park.”  Or how about “Pippi, drop that sock.”

So which is your favorite?  Any other children’s book characters that would make a good dog name?

Olive hates clothes.

Most self-respecting dogs hate getting dressed up…yet for some reason I was certain that Olive needed a tutu.

I bought Olive a t-shirt a few months ago and she took it off and urinated on it.  And then I started putting a bandana around her neck, and when I came home from work Dan had taken it off of her.  She’s just not a clothes dog.

The 2 dogs get along, for the most part.  They are still working out some of the who-will-be-the-dominant-dog drama.  But Olive is large and in charge.

As I’m writing this, Bazil is in getting his balls removed.  So hopefully he’ll give up on trying to hump Olive.  She was getting a little pissed that he kept mounting her yesterday.

And we’ve done some reading, we’ve realized that we aren’t supposed to give a bunch of attention to the submissive dog (in our case Bazil) after Olive has give him an old-fashioned butt-kicking.  We’re supposed to reinforce the pack order and give Olive a treat or pet her.  Our natural instinct was to console Bazil.

And walking 2 dogs is an entirely different story!

We are crazy.  Absolutely nutso.  

Today Mr. D and I went and met a really cute Pug/Chihuahua (a Chug?!).  The owner was overwhelmed with dealing with a dog and a baby…so we decided that Olive would love a playmate.

We named him Bazil.

He’s a couple of months younger than Olive.  They’ve been chasing and playing with one another since we’ve been home.

The only worries we have about Bazil are that he’s still got his little balls (we’re going to get him fixed on Tuesday) and he keeps trying to mount Olive; and we worry that he doesn’t know how to tell us when he has to go potty.

I hope we don’t turn into crazy dog people.  When were leaving the ASPCA today, I told Daniel that 2 dogs is enough for us.  And he said, “Yeah…until we get a bigger house, 2 dogs will do.”

Honestly, 2 dogs will always be enough.