Peanut Butter Chocolate Dog Birthday Cake

For Diego's birthday this year I decided to make him a birthday cake, to not only enjoy himself but share with some of his doggy mates. Years and years ago I had made Daisy a birthday cake out of liver and I remember what a mess that cake was. The dogs liked it, but it left the house reeking of cooked liver, and the blender took a couple of washes to get the scent out of it. After remembering that, I made sure that this years cake didn't involve any smelly meat elements.

I googled for a recipe and found this fantastic recipe from Baked by Joanna for a Banana Carob Oat Cake. I decided to give this recipe a go, and in typical Morgan style, completely butchered Joanna's recipe by not following it 100%. Some things just never change.

I had one overly ripe, probably quite bruised banana at my house, and that is what originally attracted me to this recipe. The problem was I only had one of these bananas, and I wasn't going to put one of my perfectly ripe bananas in the cake. So only one banana was used. First potential mistake.

Second, I didn't buy Carob because that is super expensive, and I didn't have time to hunt it down. Whanganui isn't generally known for its exotic range of foods, so it is easily possible that it might not even be available here. Instead, I used dog chocolate treats. I don't see the problem with substituting the carob for these treats as it has the same effect, just potentially a bit more bad ingredients go into the dog chocolate treats.

I also used wholegrain oats instead of rolled. I am not sure if this changed anything but thought it was worth noting.

The last change I made was with the icing. I made my own concoction for the icing, a mix of yoghurt, peanut butter and coconut oil. This meant that the icing went a bit hard, perfect for transporting treats to Wellington with us, as well as making sure that not too much mess was made. For the writing, I used the same mixture, but changed the quantities so that there was more coconut oil. This made the writing a lot easier, although I did have chunks of something that kept clogging the piping bag, resulting in some strange places. I added a bit of food colouring to make it green. I think this was a positive change. Could still be wrong though.

So the end result was definitely enjoyed by all dogs that trialled it, however it was super tough. The cake itself was very dense, and required a lot of chewing and breaking by the dogs to actually eat it. Maybe if rolled oats and two bananas were used this might not have happened. Otherwise my mother suggested more baking powder could have been used to make it rise more. Diesel (My aunties dog) ate two pieces in the time it took Jagger (Diego's brother that my aunty owns) to even start his. The icing went down a treat though, and if any somehow got on the ground the dogs were happy to lick it all clean.

I would love to hear how this recipe turned out if you have tried it, or what cake recipe you think I should try next. Leave us a comment down below :)

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Week 2: 150km June

Another week has flown by for June, and Diego and I have stomped many pavements within that month. If you are not sure what this post is about, I suggest you read the 150km June Challenge and the Week 1 posts to get a better understanding of what we are undertaking. This week has been very successful on some days, and a complete failure on other days. This week was also fairly raining, and Diego and I had to dodge those bad periods and make the most of the small bouts of sunshine we got. Nothing worse than walking outside in the rain without wet weather gear!

This week covers Thursday 9th of June - Thursday 16th of June meaning it is covering another 8 days, which is a 40km goal. This week we got up to 35.4km. It is a disappointing result as I have done some long, adventurous walks on certain days. Although, I only done that amount of kilometres, a lot of the walks were to Diego's advantage. They were off-leash, or involved a game of fetch where he ran around like a headless chicken. Once again, I wish I had a tracker that could go on him. I think I have completed a nice mix of leash walks, as well as walks that entertain and wear Diego out. So with in total this month we have completed 70.81km when to be on track we should be at 80km. Hopefully this next week we can get closer to the goal!

This walk was one of our usual walks around the river, from bridge to bridge and back home again. Today we took Chico, which means we can't go too far or he will get too tired to keep walking. The dogs are allowed off-leash along this walk, so as usual, Diego would have got a lot more kilometres in than I did.


On Friday, my mother had a day off work, so we all headed out for a longer stroll along the river. It was a nice sunny day, so we went double the distance that we usually do and walked all the way to the third bridge. It was a wonderful, peaceful walk and the dogs got a good amount of off-leash time. On the way back home we came across a couple of dogs, and all the dogs had a mighty play together. All five dogs were happy to play in a bunch, and left our two dogs super tired. Just as we got home it started to pour with rain and we were lucky to get such a nice walk in.

This walk has got to be my favourite of the week, Diego and I went on an adventure. I was worried that with this challenge I was going to end up walking kilometres just to get them in, and not really enjoying it, but this walk was so much fun. We walked to a local service station, where I picked up a coffee and then we went to a large field where Diego ran around while I enjoyed my coffee. Once we were done there, instead of going home we took a different route and explored some new roads we hadn't been down yet. We also got the chance to stop for some photoshoots. It was a lovely day, and Diego even got another play in with a dog that followed us along the street.


Sunday was one of those disaster days. I spent most of the day lounging about, really make the most of it being a Sunday. Finally, I dragged Diego outside, and went across the road to play fetch with his ball at a large field. I walked around a couple of times, but by this stage Diego was super tired, and ready to collapse so we went back in. I was meant to go out for another walk, but it started raining and I really couldn't be bothered. Diego would have got enough exercise from chasing his ball during that first outing.




I decided to do the same walk that we done on Friday, but this time it was just me and the two dogs. It was a fairly nice walk, and the day was warm. Diego got to play with a couple of sets of dogs that he found along the way, but I had to keep Chico on the lead as he was playing up a bit. This walk also slightly made up for the day before.


On Tuesday, after school, I packed up the car with both dogs, my mum and my two younger sisters and we headed to the local off leash dog park. At the time we went it was hectic with dogs and at one point there was about 15 dogs all playing with each other in one big gang. Diego had to ruin the atmosphere there by getting into a tiff with a black mastiff dog. Chico was having the time of his life however, and was racing around and play bowing to a pair of Miniature Pinchers. I forgot my phone this day, but I worked out that based on how many times we looped the park it would have been roughly about 3km.

This was our usual river loop walk again. This walk is getting a bit boring, I admit that, but it is easy to leave the house and do the loop. Even better is that Diego is allowed off-leash along this stretch, meaning he gets to run around and we can practice his recall. Usually there is a couple of dogs along this path he gets to play with as well, making it quite a nice easy walk to do on a day when you can't be bothered doing much.

My younger sister had a half day at school, and she absolutely loves the dog park so I picked her up with the dogs in the car and went to explore the park with her. It was completely deserted as it had starting to dribble rain. We all ran around, and went around the park multiple times. Chico raced at his usual Greyhound pace and explored every square inch of the park. Diego managed to find himself a stick so for the second half of the walk we were throwing that around while exploring other parts of the park.





How did your walks go this past week?

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Diego's Birthday Treat Haul

With Diego's second birthday being on Saturday I needed to buy him some new treats to celebrate. I also needed to make a guinea pig food order, so I ordered some treats from www.pet.co.nz. After I had made that order, I got a call from my friend in Wellington who had also sent Diego a box of treats from the same website. I thought it would be great to film Diego's reaction to the new treats, as well as share them with you. If you want any of the treats reviewed in-depth, leave me a comment below and I can arrange that. This is my first time in front of the camera, so bear with my awkwardness, but if you want to see the video of Diego and I opening the treats, click here.

Pooch & Mutt Fresh Breath

These treats smell incredible! I wanted to give them a try myself, but resisted when I realised they contain chicken. These treats have chicken, parsley, peppermint oil and chicory in them to aid in keeping the dogs breath fresh, and also aiding in digestion as another attack towards bad breath. They are small sized, dog shaped biscuits which are easily eaten by Diego. These could be broken even smaller to be used for smaller dogs, or as a training treat. I haven't seen these treats in pet shops before, and I liked the idea of fresher breath. The packaging itself is a cardboard tube, which could be re-used or recycled which is another great thing about these treats.

Plato Salmon Strips

We recently tried the Plato Hundr's Crunch treats which Diego and Chico went mad for, so I had to try out some other Plato products. Most of the products were sold out when I was making the order, so I just picked up this one packet of Salmon Strips. These are 90% Salmon and are in a biscuit like shape. The biscuits are quite easy to break, and could easily be broken down into smaller pieces, but the treat itself seems quite chewy. These are very heavily scented of fish, and do make your hands smell fishy after touching them. I love feeding the dogs fish though because of the Omega 3 and 6 which makes the coat, and skin more healthy and luscious. 

Zeal Spare Ribs & Lamb Puffs

Zeal is a New Zealand brand that makes amazing, healthy products out of New Zealand stock. Both of these treats are 100% animal products, with no extra ingredients or additives. We have tried a lot of the Zeal brand from when we received the Bow Wow Boxes last year, and Diego always has enjoyed chewing on them. These are great treats to have lying around if you want to keep your dog busy for a few moments, or to stuff into anti-boredom toys to make them more challenging.

Orijen Tundra Dog Treats

I feed Diego Orijen as his main source of food, and have done since he was a puppy. I love how they don't use fillers, and the main ingredient is actual meat. When I saw that they made dog treats, I was over the moon. They also make them in a bunch of different flavours, but I went for the Tundra flavour as it was different to the other treats we were getting. These are smallish puffs, but can be broken down smaller if need be. They are quite dry and crumply when broken, and my sister described them like flaky cardboard. 

Natural Pork Shop Porkhide Bones

These are oven roasted porkhide, that has been pressed into a bone shape. I don't generally buy these for Diego myself, because I don't usually want to watch him eat a bone for as long as these would last, but he does enjoy them when he gets them. The one worry is if he doesn't break the porkhide into smaller pieces when chewing it, because if he doesn't it can become a long, sticky mess inside of him. I will probably use these when we are staying somewhere new when on holiday or staying at my fathers, as a way to distract him and give him something to do. 

That is all the treats that we got to celebrate Diego's birthday this year, make sure you do watch the video to see Diego's reaction to all the treats. We are celebrating his birthday all week, and have some other posts you may be interested in. Earlier in the week we made Pumpkin and Bacon Dog Treats, on Friday we are making a Birthday Cake, and this weekend we will be going down to Wellington to spend some time with friends and family and this will all be documented Vlog style. 

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Pumpkin and Bacon Dog Treats

On June 18th Diego turns two, and in our household we like to do a 'Birthday Week' which means that the birthday is not just allocated to one day, you get a whole week of celebrations. Sometimes more. My sister really loves to turn it into 'Birthday Month'. 

For the first part of Diego's Birthday Week, I made some Pumpkin and Bacon dog treats. Pumpkins are super cheap at the moment in New Zealand, I purchased a whole pumpkin for $1.50. The rest of the ingredients were easily found in your pantry, or inexpensive to purchase.

I am going to admit from the start, I am chaos in the kitchen. I HATE measuring, and have trouble following any recipe for that reason. I generally try to follow a recipe perfect the first time, and then any subsequent times are me eyeballing measurements and choosing different ingredients. I have made the Peanut Butter and Bacon Biscuits a lot, and these always turn out well, although slightly different each time. This time, I thought that I would replace the peanut butter with pumpkin.

I didn't search up the previous recipe, and I most definitely left ingredients out but the end result isn't too bad. I boiled, and then mashed the pumpkin and mixed that with precooked bacon bits. Following that I added oats, wheatmeal flour and a bit of baking powder. I will admit now, the recipe needs tweaking. These turned out more like fritters than the biscuits I was going for. The dogs however love them, and they really don't mind that the texture is a bit different.

Pumpkin is a good vegetable to get into your dogs diet, and with it being so cheap at the moment, it is a good time to start. We have made a couple of pumpkin recipes including Pumpkin Pupcakes and Pumpkin Pupsicles. Diego has really enjoyed all the recipes we have made with pumpkin. Plus the extra bacon in this recipe really makes the dogs go wild for them. I am currently using them as a training treat for Diego to learn Weave for agility.

Have you made any pumpkin recipes for your pups, how did they go down? Leave us a comment below or tag us on Instagram with the hashtag #daisypets.

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Week 1: 150km June

When I first thought of this challenge, it was going to be 100kms for the month. I then thought that would be way too easy, and not actually a challenge, so upped it to 150kms. That would make it 5kms a day, and because I never used to track how long my walks were, I thought that was standard. Let's just say, that so far, it has been quite a challenge. If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out my first post in regards to #150kmJune.

This past week has been freezing, with June being the first month of Winter here in New Zealand, but thankfully for us, it has been clear blue skies every single day. It has also been quite a learning curve of a month. I learnt that walking 5kms a day, is roughly an hour walk, with me walking that whole hour. A lot of our walks used to be an hour long, but would include a stop off at a field or river for Diego to run around. One of our walks this past week was one of them, and only came to approximately 3kms, even though Diego most definitely ran a lot more than that. It would be awesome to get him a tracker too, to compare how much I walk, to how much he walks.

This week, Diego also had to go into the vet office for an operation. He had a lump growing on his gum which kept getting bumped and would bleed. He got this chopped off under anaesthetic on Tuesday and that meant that there was no time for a walk on this day. He spent the day crying, whinging, being uncomfortable and then sleeping the afternoon away. Currently, he is acting pretty much like his normal self, apart from having to eat soft food for the rest of the week. It also means I have to really watch him on walks for the next few days just to make sure he is coping alright.

For this first update, I am basing it off 8 days. Broken down, I should have achieved 40kms to be on track to hit the 150. We are currently sitting at 35.41kms, which is surprising since we had one whole day off. The problem from here, as I am typing this, is that its about to start raining, and doesn't look like its going to stop anytime soon. We will be fighting with the weather to get in our hour walk each day.

I have included screenshots from my tracking app that I have on my phone. The main reason for this is so that I can definitely say that we have done these distances and am not making up anything. It keeps me honest, and it also makes sure that you can trust what I am saying. Plus, if I can do it, so can you. I haven't included the maps (apart from one) as they have all started from our home address and I feel a bit unsure about putting that onto the internet. I will include the maps of all the walks that we do that do not start from our home address.


This was our first walk on the challenge, and this is when we learnt that 5kms a day isn't our usual. I walked along the riverbank where I let Diego off, and turned around, only to find we still hadn't done enough. Went for a little explore around the surrounding areas and still didn't make target!



I really pushed for this walk to be a long one. It was a beautiful day and I had nothing else to really do, so we just explored some of the surrounding neighbourhoods. I also took Diego and Chico to an off leash dog park later in the afternoon where we walked an extra 1.5kms.



Both my mum and my younger sister had the day off school on Friday, so we headed along the riverbank as a family with both Chico and Diego. The dogs ran what seemed like a million miles, but us humans, not so much



We had family friends come up and visit us for the long weekend, and so I quickly went for a walk with Diego before the drinks and nibbles came out. This walk seems short, however, I took his ball down to the park and threw that around til he was a panting mess. As I said above, I really need to get him his own tracker!



This is the one walk we done this week that didn't start at our house. We went to see our family friends at the holiday park they were staying at. We had a BBQ at the park with the dogs and then took a stroll along the beach where Diego chased sticks for most of the time. This walk is the shortest of the lot, but we did walk around a lot that day together which I did not record. We went exploring at sunset to get photos, and to enjoy the scenery and I didn't add that to the tracker.

This was a public holiday in New Zealand for Queen's Birthday so my sisters and I went exploring around the neighbourhood. They were on their skateboards, and we all went down to the shops to get coffee and lollies (essential items). We actually took Chico on this walk, and he behaved amazingly for how long we walked for.



With us taking Tuesday off, I felt like both Diego and I needed a good walk. I waited for my sister to come home from school and then the four of us strolled around the area. Unfortunately, both Chico and Tammin started to feel the cold, and went home after a couple of kilometres. After that, Diego and I done our usual loop around the river alone.


How are you going on the challenge this far?

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Feeding Chicken Carcasses to Dogs

When mum adopted Chico, she was given some recommendations on what to feed him and also a list of what he was currently consuming. On both lists were chicken carcasses. Before this, I had been feeding Diego some meaty, larger bones and Daisy had consumed bones frequently during her life. Never had we given chicken carcasses. Mum wanting to be a great Greyhound owner, went and purchased some and saw how happy they made Chico. He would devour them in seconds and therefore she has been feeding him at least two a week for the past six months.

Now that we live with my mother and Chico, we started giving Diego a chicken carcass whenever Chico got one. Diego at first was a bit hesitant, and licked the carcass more than chewing it. However, over time he has now come to love carcass days, and scurries quickly away with his carcass to demolish it.

Chicken bones is a controversial subject in the dog feeding world. A lot of people say that no matter the chicken bone, it should not be fed, others suggest only feeding raw chicken necks, while others recommend all raw chicken bones. One thing all these people can agree on though, is that cooked chicken bones are a definite no-no. Under no circumstance should you allow a dog to eat cooked chicken bones, and if, for whatever reason, your dog does gulp down cooked bones, make sure to keep an eye on him for the next 24 hours. The reason behind this is that once cooked, chicken bones are dry and brittle and do not break the same way their raw counterparts would. This can cause tears, and rips inside the dog leading to a whole bunch of complications.

After some research of my own, I believe the full chicken carcasses are an amazing addition to any dogs diet. Raw chicken bones contain valuable nutrients that the dog needs, as well as giving them an opportunity to chew on bones and clean their teeth. Dogs need to chew on bones to help keep plaque and build up off their teeth, and chewing on chicken carcasses is an excellent way to really clean their teeth as the skinnier bones gets deeper between each tooth. Dental disease in dogs is a huge problem in today's society and I think a number one cause of this, is the lack of natural bones and meat that dogs are getting.

With larger, meatier bones from Cows and Deer I find that Diego's breath turns extremely foul. Diego sleeps in bed with me, and also shares our couches. He is very much an inside dog so for him to have bad breath, it really affects our lives. With chicken carcasses, I haven't noticed more of a smell than his usual breath. He can eat a chicken carcass and I will happily cuddle up with him afterwards without noticing any bad odours.

Another worry with feeding full carcasses to dogs is that they will turn into blood thirsty creatures. I can say that with Diego and Chico this is not the case at all. Although, recently on walks, Chico has found a dead duck and every time we go near it, he will try and pick it up to eat it. Diego being the little sneak he is, has found a way to get into the chicken coop to eat the table scraps we feed to them. I only noticed this recently and wonder how long it has been going on for. He stops at the table scraps though. He easily has the chance to kill and eat all the chickens in the coop, and he doesn't. He couldn't care less about them actually, he only thinks them as a menace for 'his' food.

What are your thoughts on chicken carcasses for dogs? Do you feed them to your dogs? Or do you feed different types of bones? Leave us a comment down below!

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Tough Dog Toy Hunt: Planet Dog Double Tuff

 Hey! Back in March I reviewed the Planet Dog Diamond Plate Ball and in that review I absolutely raved about how amazing that ball was. Diego claimed it as his favourite ball and would play with it daily. Until we lost it. We were playing outside our house, which was on a hill, when it bounced off and rolled down the hill never to be seen again. Diego looked for that ball for a solid week before giving up and trying to accept a tattered rugby ball as a toy. Thankfully, Planet Dog NZ sent us the 'older brother' of the Diamond Plate Ball to try out, called Diamond Plate Double Tuff.

The Diamond Plate Double Tuff is made from the same materials as the Diamond Plate Ball, however, the difference is that the Double Tuff is essentially two of the Plate Balls stuck together. It has a larger ball at the base, with a smaller ball added to the top meaning that when bounced it is unpredictable and bounces is in all directions. Did I mention it is SUPER bouncy? And also, just like the Plate Ball, it has a mint smell meaning that you don't have to worry about bad doggy breath ruining the ball. We got ours in the the Steel, but I am unsure of what size ours is. It is either the medium or large.

This ball arrived about two weeks after the initial review of the Plate Ball and Diego has been playing with it daily ever since. In his mind, it is the same ball and he loves it! Diego is a fetch dog through and through and this ball works perfectly for that. The strange shape, and extreme bounciness of this ball means that Diego skids around the yard trying to catch where it will bounce and land. The shape doesn't seem to alter his ability to catch it, and actually works well if he wants to try and play tug of war with Chico.

Our Sifu (Wing Chun Kung Fu) came over from Australia to see us, and he loved this ball to play with Diego with. He would grab one end, and Diego would grab the other and they would have a competition on who could hold it the longest. Diego won.

Unfortunately, due to the shape, it has lead to some problems that the original Diamond Plate Ball didn't have. This last week, a tear appeared between the two ball segments, and just yesterday it has finally ripped apart. Planet Dog does offer a 100% guarantee on all their products, so did offer to replace our ball. However, because we already received this ball for free I did not accept their offer. It is a great thing that the company offers though, and gives tough chewing dogs owners peace of mind when purchasing. Having it ripped apart now just means Diego has two balls, and he loves that!

All in all, this ball is another firm favourite of ours. When I can find some spare cash lying around my home, I am definitely going to purchase some of the other balls and toys that Planet Dog has to offer and see how they stack up against the Plate Ball and Double Tuff. If you are wanting to choose between the two, I would suggest the Plate Ball for tough chewers as it has no grooves where the ball can be destroyed easily. If your dog isn't an extreme chewer, and just likes a game of fetch, than the Double Tuff would be perfect for that.

I would love to see photos of your dog with their Planet Dog toys, #daisypets on Instagram to show us!

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