Doggie Goodies!

A few months ago, a pair of canine siblings entered my life through adoption from an animal rescue group, Shelter Dogs Needing Homes. This wonderful group rescues small dogs from overcrowded shelters in Southern California and then brings them up to Northern California where there's high demand for them.

I wish I could say I adopted these darlings, but the truth of the matter is they belong to close friends (and my guinea pigs would say "thank goodness" to that!). One of the dogs, Sunny, I get to see every day at work when he comes in with his papa and the other, Happy, I get to visit fairly often. I absolutely adore both of them and consider myself their "auntie". And as any good auntie, I take my job seriously to spoil them. ;-)

As we're all vegans, the dogs transitioned to veganism too with Natural Balance Vegetarian Food. One excellent resource if you have a vegan dog is Molly's It's a Vegan Dog's Life. She has vegan recipes and natural, eco-friendly tips for keeping your vegan dog healthy and happy. Molly recently published a book based on all the useful tips on her blog and I was fortunate to win a copy through ecovegandog.com (thanks Molly and Whitney!). I highly recommend it to anyone new to dog parenting, vegan or not, as there really are a lot of things to consider to take good care of your dog. You can order a copy through Etsy. I'll be passing my copy to one of the doggie guardians. :-)

It's been a challenge finding a vegan treat the dogs like. I picked up a box of CloudStar's Buddy Biscuits in Peanut Butter Madness flavor at Whole Foods. Sunny liked it a lot in the beginning but for some reason has stopped eating it after 10 biscuits or so (and we only gave him one a day). Then I learned of Olive, an online store that sells eco-friendly products for our canine friends. They offered a few vegan treats as well so I took advantage of their holiday free shipping special and ordered some in hope they will go over well with "my" dogs.

I love Olive for what they stand for and what they do and I loved them even more when the package arrived.

The products were wrapped so prettily with such care and love, I felt like it was a Christmas present! And there was a note stating that all the packaging used earth-friendly, non-toxic, recyclable materials. Awesome!

Then there's a little brown paper bag with my invoice and a personalized, handwritten note thanking me for my order, and a few sample treats. The awesomeness continues!

Here are the things I got for Sunny and Happy. The Huck and Tux toys were a lot heavier and bigger than I thought so I'm not sure how well they'll fare with my little ones. Hopefully they'll take to them and the treats too and then we can begin some fun training aka Victoria Stilwell style. (I love her show!)

I get to dog-sit Happy tomorrow so she'll be the first tester. We'll see what happens!

12/20 Update:
Happy turned her nose up at both treats and didn't play with any of the toys. Oh dear! Here's to hoping Sunny likes them or else I'm stuck with dog stuff and I don't have a dog! :-D