A Tight Squeeze

Niko enjoys playing fetch with tennis balls.  We throw it from where we are sitting and more often than we'd like, the ball would roll under a cabinet.  Niko always try to get the ball out on his own.  The little guy is very persistent. At times, his entire head is under the cabinet. After a few minutes of trying, you see him staring at the ball obsessively until one of us gets the ball out for him. He sometimes resort to a quick bark to get our attention.

Skating Buddies

Taking Niko with us when we go rollerblading is a great workout for him. He can keep up with us when we skate. And when we feel a little lazy and slow down, Niko would run ahead and pull us to help us out. When he is pulling, we chant "mush, mush!"  It is a lot of fun and we shorten the leash when other people are around. We get lots of comments and smiles.

Chicken Nuggets

We bought a dehydrator and I found a recipe book that had a section on making pet treats. I found one that required only 3 ingredients - water, sweet potato, and ground chicken.  This was very easy to make. I cooked everything up, blended it, shaped the mush into little rectangles and placed them in the dehydrator. I let the thing go for 6 hours and presto, out came these hard, crunchy treats that resemble chicken nuggets. What's great is they can be stored at room temperature for weeks and in the fridge for months!

While I was doing all this, Niko seemed to know it was a special treat for him. Perhaps it was because I was doing this after dinnertime and he knew it was out of the ordinary and I couldn't be cooking again for us humans. Niko stayed in the kitchen the whole time looking at what I was doing. He sniffed the air and watched the stove. I gave him some cooked chicken along the way.

Niko didn't get to taste test the finished product until the next morning, but I think we have a winner! These are great because they are healthy, nutritious treats that can take the place of Niko's regular food. I can train him with these treats without feeding him unhealthy stuff.

Placing the nuggets in the dehydrator

Final product