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Here are some things that you could expect, or at least encourage your kids to learn as they take care of pets (some of them may apply to plant care, too, if you have no pets)

• Others depend on you. Whether it is for food, bathroom, or walks, pets (and eventually coworkers and bosses) depend on you to do your job.
• Being Consistent.  You can’t skip, you have to do it every day.
• How to motivate.  Using positive rewards works on people, too, not just animals.
• How to lead.  Teaching a pet tricks, how to obey, how to trust; all of these things are great practice for dealing with real people in a real workplace.
• How to love.  It sounds like a crazy skill to bring to the workplace, but loving others is the best way to work peacefully towards a common goal.

It may seem like forever before your kids learn the responsibility of taking care of a pet, but these are lessons that will stay with them for a life time.

What have you learned from having a pet?

But that doesn’t stop us from trying every kind of treat available.  And yes, that gets expensive.  Especially since we end up giving the rest of the box away after it has been rejected by our Dog-Food-Only dog. 

Instead of buying treats, I thought it would be smart to make some. I found this great site: http://www.bullwrinkle.com/Assets/Recipes/Recipes.htm and they had recipes for every kind of treat you can imagine. 

What a great way to get my kids into the kitchen, and teach them a thing or two about money at the same time.  Treats can be as fancy as you want to make them, and they are still way cheaper than what you can get in the store. 

I thought I would round out this Dog series by adding a great recipe for dog biscuits. 

Milk Bone Dog Biscuits 

3/4 cup hot water
1/3 cup margarine
1/2 cup powdered milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
3 cups whole wheat flour  In large bowl pour hot water over the margarine. Stir in powdered milk, salt, and egg. Add flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Knead for a few minutes to form stiff dough. Pat or roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into bone shapes. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes. Cool. They will dry out quite hard. Makes about 1 1/4 pounds of biscuits. Costs around 30 cents per pound. 

Kids could play with this like play dough, before baking.  Roll out the dough, cut it into shapes, and then bake it up. 

 
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Run around the house and change all your clocks.

$0.10 for every clock you find that needs to be changed.

Don’t forget the car and the Microwave.  (Hint: Spring Forward)

On your mark.  Get set. Go.

But we have a small dog.  A big dog may have a different list.

Chores:

• Feeding
• Watering
• Walking
• Brushing
• Bathing

Jobs:

• Clipping/cutting hair
• Trimming nails
• Scooping poop

If our dog was bigger, we probably wouldn’t bathe him as much, but then we might have to scoop poop more often.

Unfortunately most of the things on the job list are more appropriate for older kids, so ours will have to wait a couple of years before they will be making money from dog jobs.

We thought we had everything figured out.  We would wait to get a dog until we had our fence up.  Well, Shadow can fit through our fence.

Taking 3 kids around the neighborhood yelling for a delinquent dog is one thing.  But we are just months away from having a newborn. 

We have already invested in a more detailed dog collar, one that includes cell phone numbers and street address.  But all that does is help people return him to us after he wanders.

Now we are looking to invest in some higher tech security measures.  Like Chicken wire.  That just screams tacky to me, but we may be getting desperate.

Or there is the electric fence option.  I think it sounds mean, and more expensive.  But it would work even if our gate was left open.

I would take whatever works.  But what does it teach our kids, especially about money?

Tell me what you think.

We thought we were ready for a dog.

We had a fence.  Our kids were getting old enough to help out.  We were home during the day to keep him company.

Apparently there is more to taking care of a dog than that.

I grew up with dogs, how could I not know about the hidden responsibilities of dog ownership?

I’m not saying we would ever give Shadow back.  I just wished we had considered these other points before taking on a big responsibility.

• They still have to go to the vet.  Even if they are not sick, you still have to get shots and stuff.  It’s like having another kid.
• Even the best dogs chew on stuff.  We have been quite fortunate in the small number of toys that have been destroyed.  But still…
• We can’t go away for the weekend.  Well, we can and do, but now we have to find puppy care.  If we weren’t so cheap, we could take him to “puppy summer camp” but instead we have relied on generous friends. 
• Small dogs still poop.  During the summer, it wasn’t an issue: small dry and discreet.  But now that our snow is starting to thaw, we can see the value in shoveling a puppy trail a little bit further from the door.  If only…
• You have to groom them.  Part of the joys of being a “hypoallergenic” dog is that they don’t shed.  Which means you have to  clip their fur.  Now normal people may pay to have this done, but we do it ourselves.  The big problem is that our dogs fur is so fine, you can’t use normal clippers on it.  We have to use scissors.  It takes forever.
• Some dogs get sick.  We have been lucky to have only dealt with an ear infection so far.  But I know that many dogs may have some serious health issues in their life.  After my parents dog died this last summer, I realized that I had never really considered the implications of what would happen if our dog got really sick, like cancer or even arthritis.

When we decided to get a dog, we added a category into our budget every month to cover things like dog food, and license fees, now I am wondering if we need to set aside a bit of cash to cover unexpected things for our dog.  Wouldn’t it be great if the vet was covered under our health insurance?

So if our kids ever ask for another dog, I am going to have to review this list and make the decision with my eyes wide open.

The best thing about this recipe is the confidence in the kitchen it gave all my kids from the very beginning.  Even when one time we miscounted the flour and had way too much.  They were never discouraged to try it again.  Even Big G (or I guess I should say especially), who is not quite 2, loves to get in and help.

And hot banana bread with melting butter is always a crowd pleaser.  Some day, I imagine my boys will use this recipe to impress friends or maybe even a girl.  Who knows.  I am just happy to be able to start them on the right path.

Banana Bread

• 3 ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour

bake at 350* in a buttered pan for 1 hour.

Serve hot with melted butter.

Feel free to join me with a recipe or tip for Meatless Monday.

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Hubby’s grandparents, William and Virginia were pioneers in Television evangelism. Hubby’s Dad grew up on the set of the longest running non-news shows in history, Faith For Today. The show has a variety of features: music, sermons and christian dramas. Each week, the people would be invited to write into the show to share how God had been working in their lives, or to ask for prayer.

Every week Virginia faithfully took home a folder of all the letters that had been received so that she could spend personal time in prayer over each request. She knew that these people had trusted her with their hopes and fears, and she knew the power of prayer.

 One night, staying up late waiting for their daughter to come home from babysitting. Virginia noticed a funny smell. The house was on fire! She quickly woke the family up and they went to the neighbors to call for help.

 In the morning they went to look at the damage. The fire had started in the basement, and everything in the house had been destroyed. Virginia approached one of the remaining firemen to ask if she could look inside.

 He tried to convince her that there was nothing of value left in the house. But she was insistent. Thinking that Virginia must be after something very valuable, he carefully led her back into the house. Everything was burned to ashes. She asked to go to their master bedroom, despite the damage.

 She went to the bed, and threw back the covers and found a file of papers all in tact.

The fireman said, “that is the luckiest thing I have ever seen.”

“No,” Virginia said, “that is an answer to prayer.”

“So, I bet those papers are worth a lot of money then?”

“No, these are prayer requests. I promised these people I would pray for them.”

Hubby’s grandma, Virginia, died last week at age 92. Up until the very end, she was still praying for people.

 Often when people meet Hubby, they wonder if he is related to “that William and Virginia.” We get to hear stories about how their family was brought into the church by watching the show. These are the people whose prayers were in that folder.

It is amazing to think that each one of us is here because of somebody’s prayer. Somebody knew the value of prayer and prayed for you, and that is how you are here.

Somebody prayed for you and that is how you are able to give.

 *originally published as A Call to Offering – March 2010

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Our house in the winter

Despite the blue skies and sunny weather we still have a lot of snow outside.  During the summer, there is an endless list of jobs that can be done, but that list gets significantly shorter when all is covered in snow.

I just have a short list of jobs, that I would love to add to.  If there are some jobs that you can think of, please tell me.  Miss Love enjoys being outside and is always looking for work.

This is all of I’ve got:

• sweep the front porch (especially after a fresh snow)
• pick up recycling (the wind and my bad aim are not a good combination)
• shovel the walkway (it turns out they won’t deliver mail if you don’t)

I have debated adding walking the dog to the list.  It would only involve walking back and forth in front of our house and the neighbors a bunch of times.

It seems like one of those things that should be a chore, since he is everyone’s dog.  But he keeps running away wandering off, and it may just be a lack of good exercise. 

Right now I am at the point that I would pay somebody to do almost anything that keeps me from having to call up and down the street looking for our dog.

What do you think?