Aquinnah's 2nd Birthday

Upper West Side: Awaiting her steak meal

I know a few people who adamantly believe that human food for dogs are something that they would never do ... few of these people actually own dogs.  Well, we believe in spoiling our dog sometimes, however we never give her table scraps (well, rarely).  If we give Aquinnah (our 2.5 year old yellow lab) food, we wait until we are finished eating and place the food in her dog bowl.  Aquinnah gets leftover vegetables, breads, grains and meats and she LOVES it.  If we order Indian or Chinese, we save the rice that comes with everything and mix it in with her dogfood (we use Wellness Simple Solutions for her) and she eats it right up.


On her birthday, April 24, we make an exception and we make her a steak, rare.  This year she had a delicious filet of grass-fed, humanely treated steak from Fairway.  On her first birthday, she got so excited when she realized the steak was for her that she had a little accident on the kitchen floor when we put the warm meat in her bowl.

seriously dainty

This year, as a two year old, she was calm and collected.  She daintily ate each bite, slowly, from a fork (in order to discourage her typical swallow everything in one bite, lab mentality) - and appeared to enjoy every last bite.

 I don't recommend adding any sauces to your pet's meat dishes, I just keep it simple, roasted or poached chicken, hamburgers (just ground meat cooked rare in a pan, or steaks grilled until rare).  Veggies are roasted or steamed and rice cooked simply with water.

very patient 

cutest satisfied customer face ever

I think that supplementing pets diet with "human" whole foods is great.  While we change flavor of her dog food, I'm sure it gets a bit boring eating the same dry food every day.  So, here are some pictures of her birthday this year.  Mostly because they are super cute.