Styling a DIY Reversible Dog Bandana for Versatile Wear

Feeling stylish, furfriends? Here's a easy way to style a basic triangle dog bandana with four different design options for more versatile wear, plus DIY instructions for sewing your own bandanas. Pawfect! Doggy dress up around our place usually means a simple bandana (perhaps a bow tie for extra special occasions). As much as I like dressing our boys in matching bandanas sometimes, I'm also a realist about the impracticality of having a full duplicate wardrobe.  Similarly, as much as I like holidays, it's also nice to use each bandana more than once or twice a year. Here's an easy compromise that lets me play dress-up with more variety and greater options.

Shelf-Life and Storage for Baked Dog Treats

Our current FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting mini-series is all about DIY dog treats and today we're wrapping up the series (and the treats) with a look at the shelf life and storage of homemade baked biscuit dog treats. 

Decorating Homemade Dog Treats

Our current FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting mini-series is all about DIY dog treats and today we're talking about decorating homemade dog treats. Baked biscuits can be made and decorated in such a wide variety of styles that we split this treat type into three separate posts: our introduction to making homemade baked biscuit (cookie) style dog treats, today's decorating details, and tomorrow's shelf-life and storage post closing out the mini-series.

Homemade Baked Biscuit (Cookie) Dog Treats

Our current FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting mini-series is all about DIY dog treats, and we had so many delicious things to share that we extended the mini-series into this week so that baked biscuit (cookie) dog treats could get the extra special treatment (sorry...couldn't help myself!) this category of homemade dog treats deserve as one of the most popular and varied types of treats. Today's post is an introduction to making biscuit treats, and then we'll look at shelf-life/storage and decorating in their own dedicated posts to wrap up the mini-series.

Homemade Birthday and Special Occasion Dog Cakes

Our current FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting mini-series is all about treats. We'll be diving into homemade cookie/biscuit dog treats when the mini-series resumes next week, but first we're talking cakes and pupcakes. Yum!

Homemade Dehydrated Dog Treats

It's drool drool drool dehydrator treat time in our current special FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting mini-series topic all about DIY dog treats! When I (and probably many other folks) think about dehydrated dog treats, homemade jerky treats are probably the first thing that comes to mind, but there are all sorts of different options for dehydrating. Here's an introduction to DIY dehydrated dog treats, safety, treat storage, and a few handy tips.

Homemade Gelatin Gummy Dog Treats

In the current special FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting mini-series topics, we're sharing (and drooling) all about DIY dog treats! Although these are technically a chilled treat, we're such big fans of gummies that they really deserve a special post all to their own. They are easy to make, healthy, and our dogs love them! We always have some sort of gummy treat in our fridge. Here's an introduction to making gelatin gummy dog treats, safe treat storage, and a few handy tips and tricks.

Frozen and Chilled Homemade Dog Treats

It's another special segment of our FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting topics, and this week we're sharing (and drooling) all about DIY dog treats! If you're looking for an easy place to start, frozen (or chilled) dog treats are some of the easiest treats to make. Here's an introduction to making frozen and chilled treats, safe treat storage, and a few handy tips and tricks.

Why (and How) to Make Homemade Dog Treats

It's another special segment of our FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting topics, and this week we're sharing (and drooling) all about DIY dog treats!  Before I jump into tips and troubleshooting for specific types of homemade dog treats, here's an introduction to why I started making our own dog treats, the potential benefits and pitfalls, and different approaches to treat making.

Measuring for Dog Coats and Customising a DIY Pattern

Shivers, furfriends! Winter in our new town is a wet and chilly season of short grey days, and spring can be rather soggy and squishy, too. I wanted our jackets to be comfortable, durable, washable, and sized so that they could be worn by either dog (similar, but Oli is longer and wider).  They also needed to be compatible with our leashes and collars. The coats themselves are fairly simple, but the added features I wanted made things trickier, so I decided to create a warm weather-resistant dog jacket with sport fleece and polar fleece and then replicate the design using the more expensive and less sewing-friendly softshell for a waterproof dog jacket. I'll be sharing both in follow-on, but first up, a few important points of preparation, whether you are shopping or DIYing a dog coat.

FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting: Broth/Stock for Dog Treats

When we share a treat recipe idea that's made with broth (or the option of broth), we say to use an unseasoned low-sodium broth or stock. Tricky indeed as this is almost impossible to find if looking for a ready-to-use product. We're often asked what kind of broth we use when making treats, but there are no special recommendations or secret recipes in reply. We make (or save) our own. It's easy, healthy, and free! Pawfect! 

FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting: DIY Fleece Tug Toy Sizes

We love hearing from our readers! Over the years, we've gotten some great questions, comments, and requests. We've been creating some special posts around the queries we see most often here, on social media, and via email. Our first FAQ mini-series topic looks at one of the most popular topics here on the blog, and that's making fleece tug toys.  The four-part tug toy special includes choosing and using fleece for DIY tug toys, common weaving pattern problems, starting and finishing knots for tug ends, and today's final instalment on tug toy strips and finished toy size.

FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting: End Knots for Fleece Tugs

We're sharing a few special posts about some of the questions we get most often here, on social media, and via email. Our first FAQ mini-series topic looks at one of the most popular topics here on the blog: DIY woven fleece tug toys.  We've talked about choosing and using fleece for DIY tug toys, common pattern problems, and today we're exploring options for starting and finishing the ends of woven tugs. 

FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting: Common Pattern Problems

We introduced our FAQ posts last week, exploring some of the questions we get most often here, on social media, and via email. The first FAQ mini-series covers one of the most popular topics here on the blog: DIY woven fleece tug toys.  We've talked about choosing and using fleece for DIY tug toys, and today we're looking at one of the most common questions we get about making tugs, and that's why a finished toy might have an uneven shape or irregular pattern. Here are some of the common culprits for problems with weaving uniform looking patterns.  To help with visuals, I intentionally made some of the most common weaving errors in a multicoloured square/box tug and multicoloured spiral/circle tug. Let's take a closer look:

FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting: Choosing Fleece for Tugs

As promised, we've created some posts talking about some of the questions we get most often here, on social media, and via email.  First up, we're talking about choosing (and using)  fleece for making tugs with tips for selection, value, cutting, care, and more. We'll share tug toy help for troubleshooting problems with weaving, as well as tips and tricks for weaving styles and techniques in future posts.

No Rolling? No Problem! Simple Shortcut for Baked Dog Treats

Make it in May!  I'd love to bake my dog homemade treats, but I just don't have the time... Sound familiar? Today's easy share is not a specific treat recipe, but a shortcut for those of you who want to make dog treats but can't be bothered with the muss and fuss of rolling dough and cutting shapes. Hand forming the dough into bite-sized balls and flattening (like a mini peanut butter cookie) is always an alternative, but that also takes time and may be a bigger or bulkier treat than you'd like to create.  Not to worry! Almost any roll-and-cut style treat dough can be converted with this simple shortcut for making baked dog treats en masse in any size you wish.  Easy peasy!

Tips for Keeping a (Mostly!) Clean Dog-Friendly Home

As a cat loving neat freak, amalgamating households with a dog owner meant plenty of changes and compromises.  Even Oli wasn't too keen on sharing with his "evil step-mother" at first, but times have definitely changed. Now with two dogs and a cat, there is even more pet chaos and all the mess that goes along with the love. Here are my experiences and a few tips for trying to maintain some semblance of order in a (very) pet-friendly home.