A Dog Day!

 

Not sure if you can tell by this picture, but Frankie was happy! Putting on her field collar causes great excitement.  Knowing it would be in the thirties today, I charged her training collar last night too.  The horrible cold weather lately has made her days a lot more boring because we've been stuck inside on account of temperatures and dangerous ice.

I wasn't very stylish, but I was dressed for the day. While I wore my heated vest, I didn't hook up the battery pack. The heat wasn't necessary -- but the pockets sure were. This vest held my phone, wallet, keys, poop bags, kibble, and her training collar (which I don't put on until we are getting out of the car and the power is on). I wore a whistle around my neck along with the remote for the collar.

While it was gray and windy, it was great to be out in above freezing weather.  Frankie ran like crazy -- and came back whenever I called. There was one time she was ignoring me over some birds in the water, but I only had to hit vibrate to break the spell and get her galloping back.  We are lucky to have Beaver Island State Park four miles from home. I do have to pay a bridge toll to get there, but in the off season, admission is free.  The place is also empty, so I can run her off leash.  That's an important part of field/hunt training.

We shared fries from the drive-thru on the way home.  I have the Burger King app. One of the specials is a free order of fries with any purchase. My go-to order is a single hamburger plus the fries.  The order defaults to a small size fry, but you can customize it and choose whatever size you want -- and they are still free.  It is a good deal (even if it's not healthy).  A large order of fries is almost five bucks, but my order is $2.16 including tax.

While I was on Grand Island, I checked for Flash Food deals at the Tops there. I grabbed this bag of broccoli slaw for a buck. Not shown, is a tray of butternut squash, which was two bucks. I will cook with that tomorrow.  I decided the slaw would be for Frankie, so I stopped into Save-A-Lot hoping to find marked down meat. A tray of chicken thighs was all I found -- but it was all I needed.  At $1.29 per pound, this was exactly what was required to balance out the slaw.

This was a quick and simple batch of food.  The meat was cubed, and I added two teaspoons of powdered calcium.  All of it went into a vacuum sealed bag, which I cooked using the air sous vide function of my oven.  This one batch of food will last three to four days.  Additionally, I chopped up a few of the apples I got from FF last week, but that are getting a little mealy now.  We had some plantains in the fridge too, which I cut up on Saturday.  The bones I cut out of the chicken boiled on the stove for a bit so I could get flavor and nutrition out of them.  Then I added in the fruit.  Once it got soft and liquified, I dumped in two cups of oats.  If I had been earlier in the day, I would have boiled the bones longer. In any event, this is healthy and so inexpensive to make. She will get a healthy glob for lunch every day.

Dinner was tortellini with shrimp and mushrooms in a white sauce.  The pasta was $2.50 on FF a few weeks ago.  With a dish like this, I only need 1/4 of a bag of frozen shrimp.  You can use more expensive items like this if they are a small portion of the plate and still be frugal.  There is enough to provide two lunches for Tommy.

I was happy to devote so much of my day to Frankie.  It was all stuff that she loves -- and keeps her healthy.  There is no substitute for outdoors exercise and real food.  The fries were good too...