Papu's new winter coat

Papu has a very thin fur, so if it gets really cold, she definitely needs a winter coat. And it can get really cold quite often, because we live in Finland. You know, we have polar bears and penguins and other stuff here. But dog coats are expensive here. Like ridiculously expensive: I saw one nice that I liked, but it cost 60€ in Papu's size. That's almost more than I'm willing to pay for my own coat! Though we never planned to buy an dog coat in the first place. We wanted to make one by ourself.

And for this project we needed material. And since fabrics can be quite expensive too, we decided to be environmental and recycle an old coat. We went to a flea market with this project in mind, and we find this nice coat:


The "before" picture.

The coat cost 2€ (that's like 3 US dollars), which is already a lot cheaper than 60€. The fabric was in good condition and it had a nice silvery lining. Not to mention the fake fur and some small details we definitely wanted to keep. We had a pattern for a dog coat, but it was made for a pug so we had to modify it.


The buckle in the back was the first detail we wanted to keep.


The coat looked less warm after I cut out all the pieces.


Only three pieces and the original fur collar.


Things sewn together.


Velcro is handy. No buttons for this coat.


We wanted to keep the original label too.


Opening for the harness. Made like a button hole.

I'm quite pleased with the coat. It wasn't the easiest to sew and sometimes I had to ask my mother to help me. She's good at sewing. And it took the whole Saturday to make the coat, but I think it was worth it. It doesn't fit perfectly, but I blame those stupid fat pugs. I didn't realize that the bottom part should have been adjusted too. We tried it on, but it looked OK until it was already sewn. Though it doesn't matter so much, because Papu seemed to be comfortable in it. I actually expected her to fight against the coat, but she was perfectly OK with it from the first moment. She didn't even mind the fur collar.


She looks so proud in her new coat.

I would like to make another dog coat in the future, one that fits her perfectly. I also think that Papu might need a rain coat, because she hates the rain so much. I would also like to get a sewing machine of my own one day. I'm not (yet) into sewing clothes, but I would like to sew smaller things and make adjustments and customizations. All that cool stuff.

Papu's Piggy Treats

We are going to Viiala for the weekend, so we decided to bake some doggie treats for my mother's dachshund. Papu has eaten almost all the treats I baked her last time. I thought they were too hard, but after all they weren't. They were just hard to crack into pieces. I bought a smaller cookie cutter so the size shouldn't be a problem anymore. J.R. also rolled the dough thinner this time, so they should be easier to crack too. And now it seems that we have a perfect, simple doggie treat recipe, so why not to share it with you? Here it is:

Papu's Piggy Treats

Makes 25-30 small treats

List of ingredients:

• 30 grams of minced meat (that's not much)
• 1 tbsp of vegetative oil (quite optional if the minced meat is not low-fat)
  
• 0,5 dl of consommé (about 0,2 US cups)
  
• 1,75 dl of wheat flour (about 0,7 US cups)
• 0,75 dl of cooked rice (or barley or a mix of both) (about 0,3 US cups)
• 1 tsp of oregano

Doggie treats before baking.

Making:

1. Fry the minced meat.
2. Use a hand blender or similar to chop and mix the minced meat and consommé.
   
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Add the flour little by little until you think it makes a nice dough.
   
4. Roll the dough (0,5cm thick is OK) and cut the cookies.
5. Bake in 170°C (338°F) for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes turn off the oven, open it a little and let the cookies dry in the after heat.

If preserved in an airtight jar or similar, the cookies should stay good for months.


Doggie treats after baking. They still look the same, no surprises here.

They don't look so yummy to me, but Papu is crazy for them. Maybe she knows that we have baked them with love. They don't really smell that much, and I'm not sure if they taste so wonderful either, because I have not tasted them by myself (though I could, they're not poisonous).


She wants it. She wants it really bad.


Outside the picture Papu's tail is wagging like crazy.


FINALLY!

After these two experiences with DIY doggie treats, I'm very positive that I will bake them in the future too. Like why not? Papu loves them more than she loves her commercial doggie biscuits, they're cheap and very, very easy to do. Just make some Chili con Carne or any other food with minced meat and rice and take some aside and bake the biscuits later. So ridiculously effortless!

Goodbye baby collar

J.R. and Papu visited a vet on Wednesday. She had been peeing and drinking water excessively for weeks, so we wanted to make sure she's OK. And she was OK. It kinda gave us a fright, though. She's our baby and we would be absolutely devastated if anything bad happened to her. It's strange how attached you can become to a dog. They're definitely more than just pets, they're friends, family members, companions. Anyway.

Papu is now almost seven months old, and yesterday we decided it's time to pass the baby phase. We bought her a harness and a new leash. She looks so grown-up now!





The harness and the leash are both black leather. I guess some other color would have stood out more nicely against Papu's black fur, but black is pretty much the only color that suits us. They are made in Finland, and considering that I think they were quite cheap. They both cost 28.90€ in Stockmann. And I guess that since they're made in Finland, they are also designed for Finnish climate. It gets really dark in here on the fall and the winter, so it's definitely a good thing that Papu's harness is almost completely covered with reflectors. We can be sure that all the drivers can see her before it's too late.



And since Papu's a bit pampered, we bought her a new toy too. Stockmann has a good selection of toys by Kong company and we got her a Kong Wubba. Papu loves it and I'm glad it seems really durable, like other Kong company toys too. It's absolutely perfect for fetching (it's easy to throw) and tugging (it's easy to hold and I don't have to worry about my fingers). And it SQUEAKS! I also read lately, that dogs can differentiate many shades of blue, even though they're bad with all the other colors. So I guess I picked the best color for her too.



And to keep this Papu stuff coming... I also baked her doggie biscuits by myself. I got the recipe from a dog food book, but I modified it a lot. Who has some Worcestershire dressing by default anyway? I used white rice, minced meat, oregano, some oil, consommé and flour to create these:



Looks quite healthy and delicious, right? Unfortunately I made them way too big for Papu so they're quite impossible to serve. I don't want her to have a whole biscuit at once, but they're too hard to crack in to pieces either. I'm going to try some other dog biscuits later, maybe they are more suitable for Papu.

The bluebird of happiness.

I started to use Twitter on April. I had created my account a few months earlier, but I didn't know what to do with it. It was quite lame to tweet without any followers or anyone to follow. I didn't know how to get started with twittering so I buried the idea. But then months later I found Ravelry's Twitter Knitters group. Suddenly I actually had plenty of interesting, like-minded people to follow! Fearlessly I decided to hop in. I also persuaded Elina to start twittering with me, because I thought it would be something fun to do together.


Here's my first tweet. Very exciting.

And twittering is, first of all, something fun. And something easy too. It really doesn't require much imagination to write 140 characters, though sometimes you need to work your best to fit your message in just one tweet. 140 characters is not much, but it's just enough to post ideas, thoughts, links, pictures, news... You name it. I mostly tweet about my daily life, school, knitting and of course about Papu. Other people use fancy apps to Twitter, but I usually tweet directly from the website or Flock's People Sidebar. Nowadays I would like to have some high-tech kick-ass communicator to tweet on the go, but unfortunately I have no reason to get a new phone.

And yes. It's that addictive that you want to tweet all the time. Or almost all the time. Though I'm not so into tweeting myself, I just want to see what other people are up to. The stalker lives strongly in me. Anyway. I wrote this post to promote tweeting. It's definitely something that everybody should try. And by "everybody" I mean people who like to blog, surf the Internet, exchange ideas and meet new, cool people. Yeah. That could be you.

If you're a bit harder to buy, I thought I could make a list of things I have "got" from Twitter. They are also the reasons why I have fell in love with it.

• It has given me more confidence. Usually I'm too shy to even write comments on other people's blogs, but I have no trouble to tweet with new people. It's like the beauty of it, it brings people closer. If you can follow them, they're friends. If they follow you back, they're even better friends.
• It has given me good advice. People can be really helpful if they want to. For example I forgot to take cable needle to school, so I was unable to continue my knitting. I tweeted about it, and @villapeikko guided me a tutorial how to knit cables without extra needles. I was able to continue my knitting after all. It made me really happy.
• It has given me new friends. First they were strangers, now I tweet with them in a regular basis. It's really cool.
  
• It has given my blogs a bunch of new readers. Twitter is a great place to promote your new blog posts, and it's perfectly OK to do so. You can use Twitter for whatever purposes you want. Many companies tweet about their new products, and that's not considered as spam, it's considered as good marketing. I follow bunch of websites and companies on Twitter, because I like to hear about new products, updates and other news.
• I'm never alone if I have access to Twitter. I'm a lousy knitter. I don't know any fancy knitting terms, I don't go crazy about some super expensive super exclusive yarn, I don't go to knitting meetings, I don't even know knitters in real life... but I'm still able to be a member of a very large community of knitters. It's quite awesome.
  

That's all, folks. Feel free to follow me on Twitter. I'm @amoenaonline.

I'm sensing something new... A blog post!

Apparently people are starting to loose their patience with me. You know, with me still not blogging. Except I'm blogging right now because I got tagged by Minttusuklaa. She's clever! She probably knew I can't resist any blog memes. I simply can't. They are a fabulous way to blog when you have absolutely nothing to say. I kinda miss having a life.



OK. Let's start. Here are the rules:

1. Laita tunnustus blogiisi. Put the button on your blog.
2. Kirjaa sinne myös nämä säännöt. Tell the rules to the world.
3. Linkitä blogiin, josta sait tunnustuksen. Link to the blog that tagged you.
4. Listaa viisi aistia ja kerro mitä ne merkitsevät sinulle. List five (5) senses and tell what they mean to you.
5. Haasta viisi muuta blogia jättämällä niihin kommentti. Tag five other bloggers and let them know about it.

Here are my five senses:

Sense of hearing: I can always hear when J.R. is biting his nails, even when he tries to hide it from me. But sometimes I have troubles hearing what other people say, when they don't speak loud enough. It's very annoying! Speak louder, people!
Sense of sight: I can't see anything without my glasses, and even with glasses my sight is poor. I wouldn't want contact lenses because I think my glasses make me look smarter and prettier.
Taste: I'm really bad at tasting things. Seriously. If the difference between the tastes isn't strong, I think they all taste the same. For example I can drink five different cups of tea and think they taste the same.
Sense of feeling: I get shivers down my spine when someone touches my hair. I like to touch things that are warm, like Papu and J.R. Otherwise I rather watch things, not touch them.
Sense of being heard: I like to talk and I like to be heard. Sometimes being heard is more important than the things I say. I like blogging and twittering for the same reason.

I tag J.R. and Elina because I want new blog posts by them too.

PS: I'm old! I turned 23 like a week ago.
PPS: I forgot there's actually a thing called "sense of smell". Silly me.