After Christmas

So we had a christmas party! Ya wanna see the food?

Start off with M&M's, regular and peanut, Hef's dad "prepared" those all by himself. Also we have the toffee popocorn with the peanuts, CRUNCH! We had National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation playing quietly thruout the party.

In the Fireplace room we had a veggie platter and music.

 In the dining room we had our main spread. My lovey Chef Rabbit & Dip from Shell was featured. Also a cheese plate, and a bread bowl.

 We also had ham, pistachio fluff, crescent dogs, corned beef pinwheels, and the Peanut Butter Pie I talked about before. Somehow once all the guests arrived  I had less time for pictures.

Bandit did briefly came out of her cage and sat nicely with me, until a few people who promised they would not try to pet her, tried to pet her and she barked a few times before I told her "Place" which is basically stay and she went to her blanket and calmed down. Shadow was out for the whole party and tried to steal a ham sandwich from Hef's Dad's Uncle. Hef visited and was properly ooh'd over and petted. Hef's Grandpa on Hef's dad's side loves Hef and Hef hung out on his shoulder for a long while until I got nervous he would pee on Granpa's shoulder so then Hef went back upstairs. It was very nice but as you can tell it has left be lagging behind. Will continue to recap Christmas ASAP.

HOPPY HOPPY CHRISTMAS!

It is a little past 8am here! I got up at 7:20 am and made coffee, while it brewed I peeled carrots, not just for Hef but for our party tray tonight. Here is the mandatory dogs in front of the tree photo! They were not very cooperative, since when I back up to take the photo it moves me closer to the kitchen which of course they assume means I am going to get a treat. It's a pretty cute photo anyhow.

 And here is the Heffy Boy! I had put Bandit away for the night, (she sleeps in her crate) and let Hef have some floor time with the remains of our christmas wrappings. Merry Christmas to Hef!

 Best of all! Santa Paws came and our tree is beautiful. We have a good coating of snow outside and nothing more then a sprinkling in the forecast so traveling will be just fine. Have a Hoppy and a Healthy day!

It's Almost Christmas Quick Update

On Friday our dear friends, who babysat Shadow when we went to Boston, who keep me sane at work, and who we are very happy for, got married! It was right here on our little island at the yacht club. Hef's dad and I had a lot of fun and I am really glad they are married. I know they will be very happy together!

 In other belated news, we got a lovely present in the mail from everyone's favorite blog santa, Shell May of The Raspberry Rabbits! Which of course caused what Shell calls "The Happy Bunny Dance", and that was just from seeing her mailing label on the package!

 Shell is always so sweet to treat our pups and Hef as well!  Shadow and Bandit check out their goodies. One is chicken, sweet potatoes, and broccoli, sounds good to me! Shell also sent some carrot chews for Hef, I tucked them into his stocking as an extra surprise on christmas.

 And for lil' ol' me? Shell sent these adorable S&P rabbits. They are really funny, when I stick them on the fridge they turn upside down! We had kinda sorta look like rabbit s&p grinders but they were really bad at grinding. These new rabbits are great! They will come in handy with all my christmas and future cooking!

Just had to share!

Check it out everyone! There is Hef and Bandit! Everyone calm, everyone cool! Bandit is doing Place which is our trainers version of stay basically. So I used Hef's bunny blanket and put Bandit in Place while I hung up clothes and cleaned up Hef's cage. We had our last training lesson yesterday and we are very happy with the training. In case I didn't mention it or you forgot, Bandit used to push past me into Hef's room and run crazy circles around Hef's cage. Now it is peaceful and she really didn't even want to do Place. Bandit didn't even want to walk in the room! Training accomplished!

10 Days to go! Are you ready?

10 days until Christmas! Are you ready? Yes? Well I don't want to hear about it then! I am such a sucker for holidays and this one should be a biggie! We are having a Christmas Dinner Party and I will admit I am a bit nervous about how Bandit will react to all those people. We are working on Place right now, which is basically Stay on this mat right here. I was discouraged at first because our trainer was showing us some fishing reel type manuever with the leash and we couldn't get the hang of it. So we took the leash off and just point to the mat, much easier and Bandit did really well even with Hef on the couch! Anyhow I heard some of you luckies don't have snow. Here are some of my snow pictures:
I snapped a quick one of the house before work yesterday, of course then it snowed all day so we have more snow!

 This was at work yesterday from one drive-thru window to the other. My camera has a really neat Snow setting represented by a little Snowman in the corner so I tried it out.

 I was trying to capture the kinda "white-out" conditions out there without opening the window and freezing. As luck would have it I can freeze inside the store pretty well too. The heating that covers the back of Wendy's is not exactly working and the high temp on the thermostat was 51 yesterday. Stay warm everybody!

Tree? Check! Other stuff? Not so much!

Yes! We got our tree decorated, its so nice! I still need to mail my christmas cards! Isn't that awful? However we have only gotten a few cards from others so I don't feel so bad. I need a couple gifts still, argh! In other news its cold! Also its snowing and windy, thats not really fun when you work at a drive thru restaurant. However my tree is lovely! I'm just going to curl under a blanket and stare at the tree. I hope my boss doesn't mind!

One Happy Mama

Oh the wonders of remote collar training! Yesterday I walked Shadow and Bandit by myself after work. The way our route is we leave the house which is second to last on the dead end, go up our street, and walk down the other street, turn around and go back, it's kind of an L. On our way back there was a dog in the chain fenced yard of the corner house across the street. It was a little dog, probably ten lbs or so, but in the past that has not mattered to Bandit. Usually she growls and rears and barks, not yesterday! She looked, and Shadow looked but no one barked and we kept on walking. I am just amazed! YAY DOG TRAINING!

Stary Pup Happy Ending!

So as most of you know Hef's dad drives me to work on his way to work and drops me off early. Usually I come in and blog here to you fine folk. Well this morning trotting in front of the building was a beautiful red Siberian Husky. Well, I looked around no owner trailed behind. I got out of the car and a worker at the Tim Hortons' (a coffee place attached to wendy's) was trying to catch him and eventually we got a hold of his collar. I took the strap from my laptop bag and clipped it on to the dog's collar. Then I called the number on the ID tag, but it was out of service. Then I called Animal Control who's number I keep in my phone, and they knew who the owner was! I waited outside in the 19 degree weather and the owner's brother picked him up. The dog, Toby, was happy to go with them and I'm glad to help out. Lesson to learn here? Keep your ID tags up to date!

Training Update

WOW! That about sums it up! We had our first for real training session, on Saturday. It was amazing. We learned all about our Dogtra collar and then go to work. We worked on come/heel and already I have noticed changes. Bandit has not growled at Shadow at all. Shadow growled at Bandit for laying on her tail! Sisters will always fight about something! So we have been praticing the Come command around the house and in the yard, the hardest part is once we start a training session she catches on quick to what we are doing and will just stay heeled. Now when I am home I wait for Bandit to go upstars or somewhere and call her. Results are very quick. I feel Bandit is less like "What do I do? What do I do?!" and more like "Ma, what do you want me to do? I'll do it!" Pretty soon I think Bandit will be giving Rin Tin Tin a run for her money!
As for Shadow? She's going to take a nap!

Feeling like the White Rabbit again...

Ya know the White Rabbit in Disney's Alice in Wonderland? All running around I'm late, I'm late!! Instead I'm going around I'm busy, I'm busy! Christmas is coming so much to do! We are having a christmas night party again, which will be the test of Bandit's training as well as a lot of fun! Here is our tree, we got it last night, its a Fraiser Fir!

 And here is our latest ornament! A little Bandit! Its the only one on the tree since we are waiting for the branches to fall. 

Also, I made Jade's Italian pulled pork, but ya know what I used? Canned zucchini! Yum! And our Island Grocery Store did not have the canned tomatoes Jade recommended, I had to get sauce with Italian herbs, oh well. And I used McCormick italian spices cause I already had those in the pantry.

That's it and it was yummy, we ate it over spaghetti.

And last night while Hef's dad put the tree up I decided to try a Manhattan. It was quite lovely! Also it was very simple, a measure of canadian whiskey, a half measure of sweet red vermouth, and a dash of bitters, stir it up over ice in the shaker, strain, garnish and enjoy!

Did somebody ask for Hef?

I missed Hef too! We had some bun snuggles this morning and we had the good sense to take a few photos for the fans. Take your Hef medicine!

 I am not going to be the one to explain to Hef that his stocking is not hung because we need another stocking hook, but he didn't seem to mind.

 Do you like our christmas tree? I wanted to get a real one last week but we did not! This one works well for Hef though.

"Ok, fill my stocking up now!"

Bandit and the Trainer

First let me say, as some of you have noticed, there has been a lack of Hef here lately. Frankly its because I do not want any terrible accident to happen. Two different people I know have had German Shepherds and rabbits and have a bad outcome so as it is I am keeping Bandit and Hef seperated. I strongly feel this is temporary. So we went to the trainer Saturday. Hef's dad and I were both very impressed and booked Bandit for three lessons. She will go the next three Saturdays at noon. Our trainer uses a combination of pinch collars, treats, and a remote collar. The remote collar does provide an electric shock. However the trainer allowed us to hold and feel the shocks, it is very mild. The collar has 125 levels of shock and it is like turning up a volume dial, it is very gradual. I felt it at a level 14, Hef's dad felt it around 40, and Bandit is being trained on level 25. Bandit will not just be working on her dog agression/fear of strangers, but obeidence as well. I am terribly excited! I think Bandit will be an amazing dog at the end of this. The trainer says that at the end we should have 100% reliablilty on and off leash, amazing!

"TEACH ME!"



 Shadow is hanging in there. She is so mellow she doesn't bother Bandit much and we have learned where the hot buttons are. They did get into a fight over who knows what on Friday night but again no one was hurt thank goodness, and very quickly they are back to normal. The way I can describe it is Bandit isn't 100% sure what to do with herself and what her position in the pack is so she acts out. I can not wait to start classes! And I'll try to get some Hef on here soon.

"Can I hold the remote, Ma?"

More food, and BANDIT!

Apparently there is a movie called Cats & Dogs 2, and there is a german shepherd in it who wears goggles. All I know is there was a picture of the german shepherd in the coupons last week. I cut it out and put it on the fridge, so Hef's dad got his swimming goggles and Bandit tried the look out. Stylin!

 In other news, I scored a good deal on cans of crab meat so I made crab dip! Kinda easy. I used one can crab meat, one 8oz block of cream cheese, 1 1/2 cup mayo, a cup (or more) of montery jack cheese, old bay seasoning and garlic powder. Mix it all up and bake at 350 about 20-30 minutes. In the last few minutes add a little more cheese for a bubble top. Serve with crackers and good dipping stuff!

 And Hef's dad made these! Aren't they art deco? I used to have a bowl with designs like that on it but I broke it shortly after we moved. Now these are really easy and delicious! Just spread cream cheese on celery sticks and top with olive slices. So there are some extra tips for thanksgiving! Does anyone else just HAVE TO watch the dog show on NBC tomorrow? I love it! This will only be my second year watching with real dogs! Go Shepherds!

Pretend Thanksgiving

As I said I am not hosting Thanksgiving this year. However let's pretend I am. I thought it would be fun to go through the food archives and give some ideas to those who are cooking this thursday, also RG said he wanted food and we like to please.

Isn't it always nice to put out a little something? Cheese & water crackers, fresh bread and dipping oil, and olives. Just to get ya started.

 Before we load up on heavy turkey and stuffing and such, how about a nice beet and goat cheese salad? I love these! I just buy the tube of goat cheese, plop it on.

 Ahh, the prize bird! ALWAYS ALWAYS brine your turkey in salt and such. You can buy a mix at the store or get a recipe on-line, Alton Brown has a nice video on youtube about it.

 If I wasn't doing traditional mashed potatos, I would do something like this. These are salt potatos, they come in a special bag with a huge packet of salt but you could easily replicate these at home. New potatoes with a butt load of salt boiled to doneness then toss with more salt and butter.

 Don't forget Julia! While there aren't turkey recipes, there are tons of sides, including these nice brussel sprouts, don't leave Julia out of the festivities!

 And dessert? Apple pie ala mode! Yum yum! I am actually bringing the pies to Thanksgiving dinner, but I have to work and such and I'm not much of a baker so I'm bringing frozen! Hef's dad would not let me get Vanilla Ice Cream to bring. I did get some whipping cream and will be making some homemade whip cream which I love, its one of my grandma's signature foods.

 After all that would you have room for a cocktail? I bet BL would! Bombay Saphirre, vermouth soaked olives and shake it! Hope everyone enjoyed my virtual dinner!

The Holiday Season is coming!

Goodness, we have not blogged in forever! First I am really happy to report that Bandit and Shadow have not had one fight with eachother! There are probably a few growls a day but Hef's dad and I have gotten really good at recognizing Bandits triggers. Obviously watching two shepherds has been time consuming! Also we were not sure until recently if we were hosting Thanksgiving dinner or not, but we aren't! Thankgoodness, that is one load off our list! Most likely I will be in a wedding next month as a bridesmaid, now I am trying to balance the dress/shoe expenses with the christmas gift expenses! For some reason we can't uplod pictures today! I think it is the stormy weather affecting our posting! Tomorrow we hope to return to our regular blogging.

Bandit's home!

Last night at the SPCA when the lady brought Bandit out she immediately recognized us. Bandit jumped right up on me! That was something we could not get her to do at home, she also jumped up on Hef's dad. Then we got her outside and ran to the car because it was raining Bandit kept looking back at us. She was so excited to get home she kept lunging toward the house when I took her out to go potty.

We had a few growls at Shadow, but nothing terrible and NO FIGHTS! What we are doing is having Bandit sit in a room with Shadow and having Bandit sit and get a treat. We had Bandit on a leash most of the night and if she growled she got removed from the room and shut in the bathroom by herself for a bit. We also fed Shadow in the basement and Bandit upstairs. So far so good. We have an appointment on Sat. the 27th with a Trainer who works with aggresive dogs and behavior modification. I'll keep you updated!

Quick Update!

We have hired a trainer to help Bandit with her aggression and the SPCA Supervisor said we didn't need to bring Shadow in, she just wanted the info of our trainer, so now we are about to go get her! Bandit is coming home!

Would you believe it?

Look at those sweet puppies! Don't let them fool you! They had several dog fights! As I mentioned when we first brought Bandit home they fought over a rawhide, then they had a fight last week when we were all messing around, wrestling, and on Saturday, Bandit got into a fight with the neighbors dog, who is known to be agressive. After that fight was broken up Bandit turned on Shadow and fought her again in the backyard. No one was ever hurt in these conflicts. After the fights on Saturday Hef's dad and I panicked and took Bandit back to the SPCA.

Now we are miserable and miss her terribly! Sunday was just awful without her. Monday morning we couldn't take it and called asking to get her back. Bandit was being reevaluated to see if she could be with other dogs and if she could be adopted again. Bandit would have passed to be adopted into an only dog home, but I said we really wanted her back and missed her and were very attached and wanted to make things work out. They said we could bring Shadow in for a "meet and greet" and they will be evaluated together to see if they think it is ok. The SPCA has been working with Bandit to get over her dog aggression and I have a friend's recommendation for a trainer who can additionally help. Tomorrow night at 6pm we have to take Shadow to the SPCA for the meet and greet, wish us luck!

Our new favorite recipe

Our new favorite recipe does not in anyway involve Hef, I just thought this photo was funny, like Jaws lurking in the water or something, haha.

Our new favorite recipe is called Slow Cooker BBQ Pork Tenrderloin. I will take the time to write out this recipe for all of you. You will need a slow cooker, a bottle of your favorite bbq sauce, and a pork tenderloin. Around here we have smithfield and it is trimmed and comes two in a package, it looks like a big plastic tube of pork, and it was b1g1 so we decided to try cooking it. All you do is pour a little bbq in the slow cooker to coat the base, then add the pork tenderloin, and dump the rest of the bbq on top, slow cook on low for at least 8 hours, ours actually cooked on low about 11 hours. It's delicious fall apart pork that goes great over your favorite mashed potatoes, I suppose you could also make a pulled pork sandwich.

I intended to after slow cooking to maybe run the tenderloins under the broiler with bbq brushed on it for some charred rib like action on it. I say I intended this because it didn't happen, why is that? Well this little guy is why!

My dear coworkers (who are getting married this december!) were picking me up after work since they got out earlier then me they went home and came back to pick me up and come over for the bbq pork. However when they showed up, they asked me if I wanted to go on a road trip. I said ok, why? They told me to look at a puppy, I said ok lets go. Well this puppy, a jack russell terrier, ended up being about an hour and a half away from The Bunny Lounge. So we got back around 8:30, but we came back with an adorable puppy, so who cares? I will obtain another tenderloin and report to you about broiling/bbq basting.

LOBSTERS!

Lobster is on sale this week at our supermarket for only $6.99 a lb! How could we resist? Hef's dad and I each had one and shared the big guy on the left. Delicious!

Need some advice from my favorite people

Did you read the title? Yes, my blog followers are some of my favorite people! BL of A Houseful of Rabbits was informed by D.Moll that next year is the year of the rabbit! WOO! Does everyone remember me mentioning Bunny Blogger Bash? It will be here at The Bunny Lounge July 9th or 16th in Buffalo NY (well  a Buffalo Subrub) in 2011, year of the rabbit! Just a reminder to start saving those travel funds!
Anyway, at the moment I am having a tough time at work. Hef's dad says not to put anything on facebook so I'm not but I removed the blog link from my facebook so I need to vent somewhere! For a while the coworkers have been divided. Which was fine with me, two of my coworkers are very nice and make me laugh, and most of my other coworkers were friendly. On Friday, the store manager and the coworkers I like had left, this left the Co-Manager who is supposed to be second in command and is store manager when store manager isn't there, me, and two other "Crew" memebers. I was making sandwiches, of course because I am a fabulous french chef, and the co-manager was taking care of drive thru customers. One customer asked her where the liquor store was and she didn't know so she asked me and I told her. To which she responded "Well of course Hef's mom would know where the liquor store is, she needs to be in AA" yeah well that's nice, huh? I didn't say anything, just kept working.

On Monday I told the store manager, so he talked to the co-manager and she puts a bunch of junk on her facebook, during her work shift btw, about how she will "say whatever she wants about whoever she wants whenever she wants and to shut you mouth you stupid little #$@!" well isn't that nice and tottally appropriate for a comanager? NOT! So I come into work this morning to tell the store manager and he says to me "Well she could be talking about anyone," and I said "thats a big coincidence" and the store manager just kinda laughed and walked away. WELL! I am just so offended right now and I don't know what to do. I like my store manager most of the time but he is just not taking this seriously! Hef's dad really wants me to keep this job right now, and I don't want to quit, but I am sick of a co-manager (who is like5 years younger then my btw) talking rudely to me, making inapprpriate remarks and generally being nasty or acting like I am not there. I really get the impression the store manager isn't going to do anything! What to do now, bunbloggers?

Sorry for the heavy stuff today, Here's a nice picture of me walking the pups. We got a coupling leash so they only need one leash to walk together. They are still working out the details of this.

Hey there Ladies...

Oof, hmph, ok. Hey there ladies! I got a case of champagne right here, so ya know if you interested we could hope up to my cage and pop a bottle open.

NO! Not you Bandit! What do you mean Mom said no does are coming? Fine, get a glass... and do you know how to open these bottles?

Trick or Treaters

Did everyone like Hef's post? If nothing else we will always have Hef photos, in his photo folder I have 810 photos/videos. So last Halloween Shadow learned what the doorbell means, PEOPLE! With that in mind and the addition of Bandit who's SPCA papers said no kids under 13 we knew we couldn't have at the door chaos. Our local paper is nice enough to print the town approved trick or treat hours, 5-8pm here on the Island. Remember when we painted the kitchen? We had to block Shadow off then so we had an idea.

First we just had the table in the way and Bandit crawled under it, then we just had the table over the side and Shadow jumped over it! These dogs need an agility class! Shadow and Bandit really seem to care either way about our pumpkins, even though I carved a paw print, so a well placed treat made this cute photo. Hef's dad made a perfect jack o lantern freehand!