Feed your dog three or four mini meals instead of two larger meals. (Big dogs should be fed twice per day.) Measure the amount of food you should feed for a 24 hour period and feed more often.

This is especially effective if you are a snacker like me. Every time my pups hear me in the kitchen, which is a lot, they come running to see what I might share with them.

And I often share with them, so I need to factor my shared snacks into their overall calorie intake for the day or just feed them lunch when I eat lunch and a snack in the afternoon when I’m chowing down. (They go to sleep early, so don’t hear my evening noshing usually.)

Several have asked for an update on Bree and how she does with cats. Here’s an update from her foster mom, Glenda Spragg:

We have 2 cats. Simba is not scared of any dog and Bree doesn’t bother him. Sammi is scared of strange dogs so she runs and then Bree will chase her. I think if Sammi swatted Bree once, Bree would leave her alone. Sammi just avoids her!

We don’t put Bree in the kennnel at night anymore, but we do have the carpeted areas of the house gated off from her. She will not go to the bathroom on the wood or tiled floors but for some reasonthe upstairs hallway carpet she seems to like. That is the only place she has gone in the house.

She is a very sweet little girl! When I come home from work or when I get up in the morning she is always so happy to see me. In the evening she curls up on the couch next to me and loves to be petted or have her stomach or chest rubbed.

She is quite the little hunter. Always snooping around the yard. Tonight she caught a baby bunny (which thankfully got away). She got out of our yard twice last Saturday but both times I was in the yard working. We found where she got out and fixed it, just a small hole!

Thanx to Glenda and her family for taking care of Miss Bree.

I admit it. I use food as a doggie baby sitter at times. Nothing like a kong stuffed with frozen peanut butter to win over a new foster dog or help six goldens deal with a rainy afternoon.

There are some things I try to do to make this a lower fat treat.

I look for lowfat peanut butter that doesn’t have corn syrup, salt and chemicals in it. You’d think that a peanut butter called “Simply Jiff” would just have peanuts in it, but NOOOOOO. And since I can never remember which brand has only peanuts in it I have to read the lables of every brand of peanut butter on the shelves at the commissary every trip.

I haven’t been able to find a lowfat ORGANIC peanut butter, so if you know of one, please share the brand and where you purchase it.

I freeze the kongs and stuff a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter as far into the kong as possible to make the dogs really work at getting to the peanut butter.

I’m amused every time as each finishes their kong and goes to the next one to get any bits of butter that may have been left behind.

On days I know I’m giving kongs for “lunch” I skim just a bit off their breakfast.

Cathy and Jeff shared some photos. It’s obvious that Frisky is enjoying her new home!