Bella-Full Dog Treats - Pay Day!

The final payments for Jakeb and Tori's Kenya trip were due this week so Anna decided to hand over the money she's raised for them selling her Bella-Full homemade dog treats. She was able to give them each $99.50!! Way cool!!! I'm so proud of her for her heart, her generosity, her time and effort, her love for her big bro and sis and desire to help them fulfill their passion and her mean cooking skills. It has been a great experience for us all.

Anna wants to continue to make them for local family and friends if anyone wants some. She plans to take her supplies with us to Singapore and see if there's a market for them there with our new "family" and friends. We hear there are a lot of spoiled pooches there too. The money she makes will just go into her savings account. Probably for one of those Cavalier King Charles Spaniels when we get back to the U.S. :)

Bella-Full Dog Treats - Official Launch Day

This is Anna, Bella and Karat. (Karat passed away a couple of months ago. Anna likes the vegetarian treats because they have carrots in them.)

To catch up on what this is all about, you'll probably need to read this post.



Market testing is complete!! Bella likes them and is still alive. Even Jenny tried one of the vegetarian treats and said they weren't bad. She kind of started acting a little funny after but I'm not sure it was related to the dog treat. :)

So.........

Anna is ready to begin helping you make your dog sit, stay, speak, roll over or just love you with her homemade and healthy dog treats. She is only going to make the vegetarian treats and the peanut butter treats at this point. The meaty ones were sort of gross and they have to be refrigerated because of the meat in them so that would make them a pain. Bella did like them but as Jenny put it, "A dog would eat a shoe!".

The treats are made with whole wheat flour, non-fat milk and other real stuff. She will sell them for $8/container. She will be giving the money she makes to help Tori and Jakeb go on their mission trip to Kenya this summer. If you want some for your dog for Christmas, please order SOON!

(quarter shown for size - supposed to be funny...)

This is a great project for Anna to participate in something bigger than her, learn more about serving others and also for her schooling. She's learning alot about cooking, marketing and managing money, math, computer skills and various other life skills. We've had a great time thinking, planning, and cooking over the last few days.

I'm sure this is the beginning of something really cool.

Doggie Treats - Never underestimate the power of a 9 yr. old and a blog post.

Yesterday I posted about the doggie treats that Anna is starting to make to sell to help Tori and Jakeb (her big sister and brother) fund their trip to Kenya this summer. She's already got orders coming in and we're not even sure how much to sell them for or if our dog even likes them yet. On top of that, Jenny gave her a "shout out" on her blog so who knows where this will end up going. We have such great and supportive friends and family!!

Here's the story behind why Anna wants to do this.

Tori went on her first mission trip to Kenya this past summer. She was changed and fell in love with that region and the people there. She knew she would be going back. Jakeb couldn't go for various reasons but is going this year. Tori and Jakeb are both working now, Kohl's and DJ's, not so they can blow their paycheck and have stuff but so they can save for Kenya. And they are doing just that. I'm so proud of them and how disciplined they are.

Anyway, Tori's pictures and stories moved Anna deeply. She loves her big sister and saw the joy and pain in her heart. The joy of what she had experienced and the pain of not getting to be there now. She has thought through several different ways to help her get back to Kenya and then the doggie treat idea came up. Obviously, Anna is too young to go on this mission trip but Tori's experience there changed her and she is committed to helping Tori and Jakeb go this summer. In helping them go, she kind of gets to go too. What a great kid!!

She does have a name for her "business" - Bella-full. And her marketing tag line is "My dog Bella likes them and yours will too!" She even found a really cute pictures on the internet she wants to use.

Bella is our dog. Bella means beauty or beautiful thus the name "Bella-full". I think it's pretty clever.

So, more to come real soon on the three types of homemade, healthy treats she plans to make and how much they will cost. We are really in the earliest stage of figuring this out right now. We will try to keep the price very reasonable because we know if it's too much you won't buy them but we need to charge enough to cover the cost and have some left to give to Tori & Jakeb. We don't plan on shipping them but might would be persuaded if the price is right. :) We also don't plan on getting a tax number or anything for this, is that illegal? Not sure... I guess we'll figure that one out.

This should prove to be a fun and great learning adventure for Anna and our family.

My kids eat doggie treats!

Anna is trying to start making doggie treats to sell to help Tori and Jakeb go to Kenya. She's going to try some vegetarian treats, some meaty treats and the ones she made yesterday are made with peanut butter, whole wheat flour and milk and a little baking powder. She rolled it out and cut them into little shapes with small cookie cutters that we bought. Some of them were shaped like dog bones but the others are Christmas trees, hearts, bells, and angels.

So she's making them and Jakeb walks by the table and takes a bite. He thought they were spice cookies. They're made with stuff that's edible but they taste kind of bland. He looked very puzzled and then we told him they were Anna's dog treats and he immediately went to the garbage can.

I made Anna eat one because she needed to know what they tasted like if she was going to sell them.

Then Tori just told me that when she came home from work last night at 10:15, she saw what she thought was a cookie and ate one. Those were the overdone ones that didn't make the cut and we just hadn't thrown them away yet. She thought it tasted disgusting but she swallowed. I'm laughing out loud when she tells me this and immediately the blog post was born. She then saw the recipe laying out for the doggie treats and the bag with the others in it labeled "pb" for peanut butter and put two and two together. She's a smart one.

Bella (our dog) liked them alot! So if you want some, call Anna. If you buy some, just keep them away from your kids or they may start barking.

Moral of this story: Don't eat stuff off the counter until you know what it is because it might be dog food!

Final Farewell

Well, this should be the last post about our dog, Karat. We will bury a special rock and a picture that Anna drew of him in his grave because that's what Anna wants to do and that will bring comfort to her.

Today, I had alot of housework and stuff to get done as a mom so my teacher responsibilities had to be rearranged. I planned out Jakeb and Anna's assignments to be ones that they would not need my help on but they did get things done.

One of Anna's assignments was to write a three paragraph story about Karat. I thought this would help her process and reflect on the positive. First paragraph was to be why she loved him. Second, fun things she did with him. And third, why she misses him. While we were talking the assignment through, she was telling me stories and I told her that those were the stories she needed to write about. Then, in an attempt to prompt a third paragraph, I asked her why she would miss him and she simply said "because he's dead".

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to make light of his death in any way. We miss him and Anna is still very sad but it is true, afterall, that we wouldn't miss him if he weren't dead.

Maybe Dogs Do Have a Sense of Humor

All of the family left except for dad and me on the day the hurricane was supposed to hit. Dad and I had to pack up the dogs and board windows and all that fun stuff. Everything seemed to be going as planned… the bags were packed, Bella in the kennel and Karat tied to the leash in the back of the truck. Karat had never been in any car situation but Bella had and had either thrown up or peed everywhere. This experience with Karat was not much different. We got to the intersection of Center Way and Magnolia and Karat decided to release all bodily fluid and make a dash for it. Little did he know the restraints around his neck would stop him from going anywhere but hanging from the side of the truck. Dad rushed out to pick him up not knowing of the cruel act that Karat had displayed before his escape attempt. We had to go back home so dad could change his shirt and wash up. Karat learned his lesson that day.

Maybe Karat had a sense of humor… I mean what other dog would decide to pee before making an escape attempt. He must have know it was a win-win situation for him but the total opposite for us… or dad. hah

Photos To Remember Karat By

These aren't terrific photos but I guess we didn't take very many of him and I finally found some so I thought I'd put them out there. The first one is a few years ago when it actually snowed here on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The second is earlier this summer and the third is when we evacuated for Hurricane Ike recently. He was already not looking so great. He was happy and healthy up until about a month ago so at least he wasn't sick for very long.

Karat - Part 2

I got a phone call at work. It was Andrea and she said, “There is a dog in our garage.”

I said “Is he mean? If not run him out!”

She said, “I put him there.”

That was the first I knew about Karat. I thought we would find his owner and get back to our one dog existence.

Karat was a mellow dog. He never got too excited about anything. One of the reasons we got a dog was so I could run with it. As soon as Bella grew up enough I started running with her. The problem though is that she is so hyperactive that she would pull me down the street when I wasn’t fast enough. Then she would wrap me in the leash as she ran in big circles around my intended path. When it was safe I would just drop the leash and let Bella run free and she loved it.

After we got Karat I would take Bella out of the pen in the morning to run and he would just whine. I thought maybe he wanted to go running too so when he was old enough to run I put the leash on him instead of Bella. It turns out that he wasn’t interested in running at all. He just didn’t want Bella to leave.

As we ran I had to practically drag Karat along with me. Where Bella was spastic, Karat was lethargic. We ran on the sidewalk that goes behind the houses on Azalea. When we made the turn away from the road I dropped the leash so Karat could run free. Instead of taking off like a rocket as Bella normally did Karat stopped.

I stopped too and turned around and looked at him. He looked at me like “If you want me to run some more you’re going to have to make me.”

In the mornings when I fed the dogs I would let them out and they would run and play. Karat was the dog who would come fall on my feet as I filled up the water bowl because he wanted me to pet him. Only after I scratched his ears or rubbed his belly would he go off to see what Bella was up to.

We'll miss you Karat!

Our dog, Karat, died sometime yesterday afternoon. We knew it was coming and almost hoped it would be sooner than later because he was just so ill and he looked miserable. We did all we could but he just got so skinny and mellow over the last month, we really noticed he was not right over the last month or so. The picture above was taken in March (he hated baths!)and he was fine then.

Yesterday around lunch time, I looked out and saw him moving a little in the dog house but then around 5pm or so Jakeb came and told me that he wasn't moving at all. When Tommy came home from work, he dug a grave and he buried our big orange dog.

We are all very sad but Anna, our 9 yr. old, is particularly sad. One of the best things about Anna is that whatever she loves, she loves deeply and she really loves our dogs. This is her first real experience with death and having to say a hard goodbye to something she loves so much and go through the grieving process. As a parent, it's so tough to see your children hurting so much.

We told Anna we will just need to focus on the good stories and we do have a few with Karat. Starting with how we got him.

When Jakeb was in 4th grade, 6 years ago, Anna was 3. The day was November 19th and Jakeb's class was having their Thanksgiving Feast at school. I was supposed to take carrots and forgot. So, Anna and I dropped Jakeb off at school and went to the store to buy carrots and bring them back. When we got back to the school, there was a super cute little orange puppy with huge feet (we knew he would be a big dog!) hanging around the outside entry to the school. Anna immediately fell in love and I thought I would be a bad role model if I just left that puppy there to get run over in school traffic. We dropped off the carrots, picked up the dog and took him home. He had no collar. We made all the appropriate phone calls and did all we could to return him to whoever he belonged to but we had no luck in finding his home. So, we kept him. Bella, our hyperspastic English Shorthair/Pointer, needed a playmate anyway and we had room in our big "dog yard". We named the big-footed, orange dog Karat for three reasons. We found him while dropping off carrots, he was orange and November 19th is mine and Tommy's wedding anniversary so I guess I had diamonds on the brain. :)

The Stunz family blog posts for the next few days will be dedicated to Karat and stories about him. I will try to get the kids and Tommy to tell a story or two. It's always good to remember the fun times when you miss someone.