Our Greatest Costume Moment

This is from 2011 and it wasn't Halloween, but we had to share it because Bob dressed as Harry Potter is just to cute for words

Pumkin Puree for Pups

"So this thing is going to become a treat for me?  That makes that hat almost bearable."

Most informed pet owners know about the powers of pumpkin as a gastrointestinal cure all, but did you know its also loaded with vitamins and anti-oxidants.   In fact pumpkin is one of the most goof proof kibble add-ons since nearly every tolerates it well.  I've added pumpkin to the dogs food for years, but I have never cooked fresh pumpkin.  I thought this would be a good year to try.

Pumpkin Puree for Pups
  
1 small baking pumpkin, 2 to 4 lbs
2 cups unsweetened apple juice, carrot juice, or apple-carrot juice blend
1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional, but cinnamon has many health benefits including lowering blood sugar and boosting cognition)

Preheat the oven to 350.  Slice the pumpkin in half with a sharp knife, or what I used a jack o' lantern carving knife.

Scoop out the stringy bits and seeds (saving the seeds to roast later) and lay the halved pumpkin on a baking sheet.   Bake for 45 minutes.  By this time the pumpkin will be soft and the skin will come right off.   Cut it in chunks and put it in the blender, if you are lucky you will have a Vitamix, but any old blender will do.  Add the juice and cinnamon and blend on high until pureed.

 Top your dogs kibble with generous dollops.

Happy Howl-O-Ween-A Very Busy Halloween Weekend

Now here's the thing, our mom is pretty nuts about Halloween. I mean she owns a ton of horror movies, loves to eat candy and carve pumpkins, has a box full of vintage Halloween decorations, and she starts planning thr pugs Halloween costumes on November 1st.  So since last years celebration was washed out by Hurricane Sandy she was determined to make up for it this.   First she got up really super early and made apple cider donuts.  She was all proud of herself because she had never made donuts before.

 We put on our best begging faces and managed to get a taste.

 Now they were tasty, but we kind of agree with Dad when he questioned whether they were worth the effort since you can buy pretty good donuts at the shop.  Mom, however, is sold on them as a yearly treat.  After our donuts and our walk it was time for our yearly pumpkin of goodies.  Now we were pretty upset about this because Mom and Dad filled it with our bark box treats.  Which is totally unfair.  We get a Bark Box every month so it stands to reason that for Halloween we should get a Bark Box AND a treat filled pumpkin.  Mom is blaming this one on Dad who apparently said we did not need both.

Weasley saying "What the #?!# these are our Bark Box goodies!"

 There was still some cool stuff in the pumpkin so we guess in the end it was OK.  After the pumpkin it was time for the pugs to get ready for the Halloween parade.   Mom and dad used to bring all five doggies but it got to be too hard to control us in all the Halloween chaos so it now falls to the pugs to dress up and Norbert and Bob are lucky enough to get to stay home and then eat the treats we bring back.   For this Halloween the pugs wore the same costumes as last year, since they never really got to use them because of the hurricane.  They were the Three Pugateers:

The costumes are from Matti's Millinery and Costumes on Etsy  and they really are the  best costumes we have ever had.  She makes great stuff.  Mom is already drooling over the Renaissance Tudor pet costume  and she says she kind of wishes she was rich and had some Victorian event to go too because she would love to wear one of the Victorian people dresses too.  Anyway, our pet parade was at Canis Minor in Pavonia Newport in down town Jersey City. 
We arrived in style:

There were lots of doggies in costumes, but it didn't take us long to size up the competition and realize that really, no surprise, we were the cutest.

We participated in the parade but figured it was pretty much a moot point, since we were the clear winers.  Sadly it was so windy that tubby lost the feather in his cap.  However, that was made up for when we did indeed win, best group, and we got a twenty five dollar gift certificate to the store and we will be in the local paper.

 Clearly we are the cutest.

The best part was when we got home from the parade mom and dad gave us and Norbert and Bob lots of treats.  Maybe, they were feeling guilty because that night they ditched us!  They went out to the Halloween show at the Landmark Loews Theatre.  We wanted to go too but apparently no dogs allowed.    Its one of the last big movie palaces left in the whole country and since its a non-profit they occasionally show old movies there. We would love to see the inside because Mom and Dad both say its amazing.  They took some blurry pictures

 We hope mom didn't get any costume ideas for next year from the movie, it was  Bride of Frankenstein

Monday Mischief-Pumpkins, Pugs, and Bulldogs at Demarest Farms

October is by far my favorite month of the year.  I love the colors, the cool air, and Halloween.  One of my favorite parts of October is going to Demarest Farms 
 

with a few of the dogs to buy a pumpkin and eat their delicious apple cider donuts and potato pancakes.   This year we brought Tubby, Ping, Weasley, and Bob.   One of the nicest things about Demarest farms is every fall they have a play area set up with photo props for Halloween pictures, if you get there early in the morning like we did you have the section to yourself and can take some cute doggie pictures.

 The best part of a trip to Demarest farms is the food.  They have amazing apple cider donuts that just take like fall and delicious apple pancakes.  Since they have a lot of picnic tables its easy to sit with the dogs and have a nice breakfast.

Everyone got a taste.

After we ate our food we picked out our pumpkin:

The whole trip was a big success with every on good behavior and no mischief in sight until...............we walked back to our car and realized we had a flat.

Luckily Dad was able to change it quickly while the dogs waited in the car.  Mischief managed!

Big Hound-O-Ween Saturday!

This weekend we started celebrating Halloween early.  Mom did some decorating

 Too bad its so dark in our house or we could have gotten better photos.  Anyway, the decorating part was boring.  The good part came Saturday morning when after our walk we got our treat pumpkin!

We got some good loot this year: A black cat toy we named Poe (after Edgar Allen), a Deedle-Dudes Rat that we named Scabbers, a Crinkitts water bottler holder toy, a boiled wool snake, a Kong Mustache, Chicken liver treats, and a big bone biscuit!  Mom did cheat a little and some of the toys where from our October Bark Box, the rest where from one of our favorite stores Zoomies, which is right next to where mom works.  

After we got our Pumpkin the puggers went to the Canis Minor Halloween party in Jersey City (Norbert and Bob are not really found of big crowded events like this and last year they wanted to leave, so they stayed home.)   

 They had a huge treat table with free samples of Stella and Chewy's (don't worry we brought some home for Norbert and Bob).

This Brussels Griffon really remind us of our angle sister Dr. Zira, she was dressed as Winnie the Pooh isn't she adorable

Anyway we totally deserved all the fun!  Mom and Dad abandoned us twice this week, on Thursday (a school night no less) they left us to go see Riff Trax Live Birdemic.   Mom says Riff Trax is the same guys from the old show Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which she and dad liked a lot, basically they make fun of bad movies.  For Riff Trax live they show a movie and make fun of it live from a theatre in Nashville and the show is streamed to other movie theatres around the country, sounds pretty lame to us, but mom and dad said it was really funny.

Then tonight they are leaving us AGAIN!  To go see Dracula 1931, the Bella Lugosi version, at the Landmark Loewes revival Theatre. 

Anyway happy Hound-O-Ween weekend!