Bark City Doggy Daycare

These fancy dog treats are relatively easy to make and have lots of good things in them. Valentine's Day is a little under a month away, why not start plotting a gift basket full of these cookies for your favorite canine friend? Here is the recipe:  Ingredients 1/3 c. rolled oats 2 1/3 c. unbleached flour 1/4 c. pumpkin seeds 1 Tbsp. flax seeds 4 carrots 1 apple 1/2 c. peanut butter 1 tsp Better Than Bouillion Vegetable base 1 Tbsp honey 1 egg 4 pieces of bacon (cooked) 1 Tbsp bacon grease Step 1: Using your food processor with the grating blade, grate the carrots and apples. Transfer them to a medium sized bowl. Step 2: Swap out the grating blade on your processor for the standard blade. Add the rolled oats, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds and bacon to your processor. Grind them up. Add them to the carrot apple mixture. Step 3: Add the remaining ingredients to the medium bowl and mix. Once everything mixed thoroughly, transfer to a floured surface. Roll out your dou...

The other day, my neighbor came over with a catalog and a basket of essential oils. The aroma in my house soon turned into a wondrous rainbow of smells and it honestly helped the cold congestion everyone in my house had been feeling for the last week. While the aromas lingered in my household, it got me thinking about essential oils for pets. EO's have been around for a long time and lately their popularity is becoming mainstream. We all want something a little more natural.... a simpler way of doing things in our life. And let's face it, we all wonder sometimes if we really need all those tests our vet is pinning onto our bill (I still don't have the answer to that.) We love our pets. They are part of our family and we want the very best for them... Which is a happy, HEALTHY life. But are EO's safe for pets? I immediately started researching the topic and was surprised by results. For dogs and horses, there is a wide array of articles on how to use essential oils...

For the last couple weeks, I have written about two products Honey Bees produce: Honey and Royal Jelly . This week, I will write about:  Bee pollen is the plant pollens collected by worker bees that is combined with plant nectar and bee saliva. It is then packed into pellets in the hive and used as a food source for male drone bees. Historically, it has been touted as a complete food source. It is composed of about 40% protein , free amino acids, a multitude of vitamins, minerals, folic acid, enzymes, co-enzymes, antioxidants, Quercetin , carotenoids and rutin . Once ingested, it is rapidly and easily absorbed into the body. Within just two hours of ingestion, it can be found in the blood, cerebral spinal fluid and urine. Throughout history, Bee Pollen has been used for a multitude of medical problems as well as to correct an unbalanced diet. It should be noted, that not much research has been done on the actual validity of the health claims other than case studies by in...

 For the last few weeks, I have been highlighting different dog treats that can be found in our candy store.The next company (and last for a while!) is Polkadog Bakery . Polkadog is a small canine bakery in South Boston. All of their treats are handmade from scratch every morning. Their ingredients are locally source from neighborhood suppliers. Large dog treat manufacturers often have raw materials shipped to them from all over the country or world. This causes a decline in quality and increases the risk of food contamination. Because Polkdog gets all of their ingredients "right around the corner" they have optimum control over what goes into their treats and what stays out. In fact, they control every aspect of their bakery from resources, to mixing and baking the ingredients to even hand-packing the finished products and shipping! Their treats are superb and dogs absolutely love them!

The candy store treat company I am going to highlight this week is Bosco and Roxy's . We first learned about them at a dog convention in Las Vegas this past summer. They are based out of London, Ontario Canada and founded by fellow dog boarding facility owners, Michelle and Jamie Crook. Michelle and Jamie wanted to give the dogs special treats while they were boarding, so they started baking from scratch. Word slowly spread about their treat's awesomeness and soon people were asking if they could take them home. The treats have quickly spread across North America, yet they still retain that homemade touch. This image was found on their Facebook page. Click here to "like" them. All of their cookies are hand cut, baked and decorated. Their ingredients are human-grade and they carry wheat-free options for those sensitive stomached pups. We also like that they have many different themed cookies to choose from, so we can pick our treats according to what...

We launched our Dog Candy Store in December. It took us quite a while to decide what treats to carry. After all, we only want the best treats available to our clients! I would like to take these next few weeks to highlight the companies we decided to use. Today, is Bubba Rose Biscuit Company . Bubba Rose was started in 2006 by Jessica and Eric Talley. They started making dog treats for their two rescue dogs, Bubba and Rose. From there, it kind of took off! Now they have been featured on NBC's Today Show, People Magazine, NY Times Style Magazine, Modern Dog...and MANY more... trust me, the list is really long. I didn't feel like typing them all out. They also have a cook book you can buy. (See picture to immediate right.) What I like about Bubba Rose is that every treat is wheat, corn, soy, gluten free AND baked in small batches in their bakery in NJ. All the meats are locally sourced, free-range, grass fed and hormone and antibiotic free. They not only care about dogs,...

 Bark City has been planning and plotting some super secret ways to make our facility an exciting experience for both you and your dog. We will be announcing different additions throughout the next year (We like to keep our customers on edge and guessing with anticipation!) Our first announcement happened this Howl-ween: Yep, that's right. We will be opening a candy store for your canine family members. We figured there is enough candy around for humans, but our little pups get left in the dust. We want to change the phrase, "Like a kid in a candy store." to "Like a puppy in a candy store." (I am coining that phrase as of now...) If you happened to stop by our facility during Howl-ween for the costume contest, you probably saw a glimpse of what some of the treats will look like: Aren't they great?! Aside from the candy, we had some great costumed pooches come in for our contest. You can see all of the costumes on our Facebook page . Here are...

Have you ever witnessed a dog DESTROY a toy in what seems like less than a second? Imagine how many toys a doggy daycare could go through in just a day! Not us. We use a special toy from local West Paw Design . These toys are made from a material called Zogoflex. Zogoflex lasts a long, long time. They bounce, float, bend and stretch (great for tug-of-war, fetch and swimming!). They are BPA-free, phthalate-free, non-toxic and FDA compliant. Eventually these toys do start to break down. But unlike most toys, they do not end up in a landfill. They can be recycled almost indefinitely!  To learn more about West Paw Design's "Loop", click here . PLUS... they made us movie stars!!! We also use West Paw Design's beds in our facility. These beds are great because they are SEWN BY HAND in the USA and the stuffing is made from a material called IntelliLoft. ItelliLoft is an extremely fluffy material made from recycled plastic bottles. See how comfy thi...

 I found this recipe on Babble and decided to give it a try. I did one alteration: I substituted water for the chicken stock. I make my own chicken stock and was wary of giving it to a dog, because I put quite a bit of onion and garlic in it....and a lot of salt. The substitute did not seem to affect the results.   The Ingredients: 2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour 1/4 c. skim milk powder 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese 1 tsp. baking powder 1 c. water 2 tbsp. olive oil sesame seeds for sprinkles  Next, I gathered my helpers......  .... and we mixed everything together. I like to mix all the dry ingredients before I add the wet ingredients. Once, the mixture starts to stick together and becomes hard to stir, I use my hands to form it into a ball (think play-doh). We let our dough ball sit for ten minutes.... Then, we rolled out long logs and shaped them into pretzels!!! It took a little practice to figure out how thick and long the log should be ...