The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : Peanut Butter The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : Peanut Butter
Showing posts with label Peanut Butter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peanut Butter. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Chrissy Teigen rescues pet hamster from wall


Chrissy Teigen has rescued her family hamster after it got lost in the wall.

The 35-year-old model took to Instagram on Monday (23.08.21) to share a four-minute video of herself hunting along a wall in her house trying to locate the sound of “faint scratching” coming from within, which she believed belonged to her hamster Peanut Butter who went missing three days ago.

To read more on this story, click here: Chrissy Teigen rescues pet hamster from wall



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Saturday, September 1, 2018

How To Make A Dog Birthday Cake


Celebrate a special occasion in your dog's life with a worthy homemade treat.

The bond we have with our dogs can be truly amazing. That's why it's no surprise that there is a growing trend for celebrating a dog's birthday not only with some extra cuddles but also with an extra special treat: a cake!

But not just any cake will do for a dog — it has to stay within a dog's dietary needs, of course. Grain-free and sugar-free cakes are a healthful way to celebrate. Many dogs have allergies to grains, resulting in itchy, dry skin and other problems, and added sugar is not good for their system. They experience sugar highs and lows just like we do, and the negative effects just aren't worth it. So the following cake recipes leave these harmful ingredients out.

The first recipe uses coconut flour instead of a grain-based flour. Coconut flour is a perfect ingredient for baked dog treats because it has loads of nutrients, including protein and iron, and is far lower on the glycemic index than grain flours. The second recipe uses no flour at all.

I used liver paste for the frosting since my dog is not a big fan of cheese or peanut butter, which are the main ingredients for the frosting recipe below. Needless to say, the frosting was licked off first! Feel free to get creative (within reason, for your dog's health) with the frosting and toppings and make them suit your dog's preferences.

To read more on this story, click here: How To Make A Dog Birthday Cake

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Sunday, July 17, 2016

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is Proposing to use Unmanned Aerial Drones to Help Black-Footed Ferrets


Black-footed ferrets are America’s ferrets, the only ones native to this country — and they’re in trouble. What better way to help save them than one of America’s favorite contraptions, the drone?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to use unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly known as drones, to rain peanut-butter pellets down on northeast Montana. The tasty ammunition is laced with a vaccine against the plague. The targets are prairie dogs that are commonly afflicted with the disease.

Getting those rodents to scarf down the drone-fired bait would keep them healthy, which in turn would help the ferrets, because black-footed ferrets eat prairie dogs. Prairie dogs, in fact, make up 90 percent of the diet of the carnivorous ferrets, which also live inside the prairie dogs’ old burrows. Black-footed ferrets are, in other words, entirely dependent on prairie dogs.

And keeping black-footed ferrets alive is a key mission for Fish and Wildlife, whose literature charmingly refers to the animals as “BFFs.” They’re cute and oblong, with the face of a tiny badger, and they’re among the most endangered species in the world. As Americans pushed west, prairie dog eradication programs, agriculture and development removed much of the ferrets’ prey and habitat, and by 1987 just 18 of the little masked creatures remained.

They’ve since been captured, bred in captivity and reintroduced to more than two dozen spots in eight Western states and Canada and Mexico. But there still aren’t many of them, and the flea-borne plague is a big threat. For years, Fish and Wildlife workers have squirted flea-killing powder, by hand, down into prairie dog burrows across the plains. But that’s labor-intensive and inefficient, and there are signs the fleas might be developing a resistance, said Fish and Wildlife biologist Randy Matchett. Vaccinating the ferrets from the plague is also tough, because they live underground and are nocturnal.

Enter the peanut butter pellets — and the drones. Matchett has been hard at work developing the pellets, which encase a vaccine that has worked in lab trials and in small patches of the wild to protect prairie dogs from the plague. Now the government wants to expand the trials to bigger, 1,000-acre areas. The idea is to head out in the early mornings, while ferrets are sleeping but prairie dogs are active, and drop a pellet every 30 feet. In tests, that rate has enticed 70 to 95 percent of prairie dogs to eat the bait (which Matchett said he knows because it tinted their whiskers pink).

The pellets, by the way, are not M&Ms, as has been reported elsewhere, Matchett said. “We do not have an official candy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” said an agency spokesman, Ryan Moehring. They are “more like a mini-marshmallow,” Matchett said.

But how to efficiently dispense them? Matchett has proposed testing two ideas at a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Montana: Strap a GPS-sensing dispenser to a human-driven ATV that shoots a pellet left, right and down every 30 feet. Or strap the same sort of dispenser to a fixed-wing drone, which could be cheaper and speedier, treating two acres a minute, Matchett said.

“You see how the math and that velocity really get attractive,” he said.

Matchett said he is working with a contractor to design the pellet-shooting drone, which he hopes will get a trial run later this summer. “I know nothing about drones, but he does,” Matchett said. “And I’ve explained the requirements that we need, and he says, ‘I can do that.'”

Flea-killing spraying and ATVs will probably also remain in use, Moehring said. “This is conceptual and limited in scope,” he said. “There is not an army of drones heading to the West.”

Though the use of a drone would be novel, this is hardly the first time airdrops have been used for conservation.

Among the most delightful examples actually involved airdropping the animals themselves. In the 1950s, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game rounded up beavers that were wreaking havoc on private property, packed them by twos into wooden boxes, attached them to parachutes and dropped them into remote areas where the toothy rodents’ dam-building skills were needed.

As in the case of the ferrets, the paratrooper force grew out of a need for efficiency: Previously, the beavers had been trapped, packed onto horses, driven by truck to a forest, then packed onto horses again and “subjected to more handling, heat and jolting,” according to a 1950 article by the department’s Elmo W. Heter, who devised the parachute plan. Here’s a video of it:


In 2013, U.S. helicopters dropped 2,000 dead mice strapped to makeshift cardboard and tissue parachutes onto the forests of Guam. Their mission: Kill invasive brown tree snakes. The mice had been studded with acetaminophen, the painkiller in Tylenol, which is lethal to the snakes. The parachutes tangled mice in the trees, where they made perfect tree snake snacks.

In the 1970s and 1980s, tens of thousands of vaccine-stuffed chicken heads were airdropped onto the Swiss countryside to help rid foxes of rabies. These days, Texas every year launches what it calls an “aerial assault on rabies,” by sending out planes to drop millions of little plastic packets of fishmeal-coated anti-rabies bait. The targets used to be coyotes and foxes; now they’re also aimed at skunks. This method is used in several Eastern states as well, where the Department of Agriculture has long dropped cubes of anti-rabies laced dog food to prevent raccoon rabies.

And then there’s this bizarre, not-definitely-true example: In the 1950s, the World Health Organization just might have parachuted live cats into Borneo, where it was hoped they’d kill the rats that were spreading plague and typhus among people. The details are sketchy — it might have been just a few cats, or might have been 14,000, and they might have floated down in baskets, according to Patrick T. O’Shaughnessy, an Iowa professor who wrote about the operation for the American Journal of Public Health in 2008. He wrote, however, that the “basic components of the cat story seem to be true,” and “although seemingly bizarre in nature, this method of delivery was not uncommon.”

Back in Montana, Matchett says airplanes aren’t quite right for the ferret mission, because the delivery must be precise, and therefore low-flying.

“We’re saving hoverboards for last,” he said of his vaccine-distribution plan.

That, unlike the drone idea, was a joke.

A black-footed ferret at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center in Wellington, Colo. (AP Photo/ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Kimberly Fraser)


Black-footed ferret babies born at the Conservation and Research Center, part of Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park. ( Photo by Jessie Cohen, Smithsonian’s National Zoo)



A black-footed ferret prepares to leave its carrier during a release of 30 ferrets by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colo.  (David Zalubowski/AP)



Department of Agriculture wildlife specialist Tony Salas holds a brown tree snake outside his office on Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam. The U.S. government is dropping toxic mice from helicopters to battle the snakes, an invasive species that has decimated Guam’s native bird population. (Eric Talmadge/AP)

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Thursday, June 11, 2015

With the Introduction of a Unique Line of Peanut and Other Nut Butters onto the Market: Nuts ’N More, Contains Xylitol, and Extremely Dangerous for Dogs


If you're like many people, you might want to give your dog some peanut butter as an occasional treat. Or you might want to use peanut butter as a trick or reward to get your dog to take their medications? In many cases this is perfectly fine (so long as it's not in excess — as too much can cause pancreatitis and/or contribute to obesity).

However, with the introduction of a unique line of peanut and other nut butters onto the market — Nuts ’N More —  the answer to the question of whether or not it’s safe to give, even a small quantity of, peanut butter to your dogs is no longer a straightforward one. Why? Because of the sweetener that’s been used to replace the sugar in this line of peanut and other nut butters. That sugar substitute is called xylitol.

Is Xylitol Safe For Dogs?
Xylitol is a sweetener that's gaining in popularity because of its dental beInefits for people as well as its suitability as a sugar substitute for people with diabetes. Because of its ability to help prevent cavities and tooth decay and its low glycemic index, xylitol is proving to have some good dental and other health benefits for people. Unfortunately, while xylitol appears to be perfectly safe for people, it is extremely dangerous for dogs — even in small quantities.

 Ingestion of as little as 0.1 gram (g) of xylitol per kilogram (kg) of body weight (0.1 g/kg) can cause a rapid and dangerous drop in a dog’s blood sugar (a condition called “hypoglycemia”). Hypoglycemia can show as staggering, appearing disoriented, collapse, weakness, and seizures.

Just slightly more than that, approx. 0.5 g/kg xylitol ingestion, can lead to debilitating, and sadly often deadly, destruction of a dog’s liver cells.

These quantities, or toxic doses, are based on the data that the animal-specific poison control hotlines have collected from reported cases. To highlight that these are reported cases is important, because not every case of toxicity makes it to the vet, and not everyone that does go to the vet is called into the animal poison control hotlines. So the actual toxic doses could be even lower, and dogs with certain pre-existing medical conditions (such as diabetes, hepatitis, and others) are likely to be even more sensitive to the toxic effects of xylitol.
  
The gaining popularity of xylitol as an ingredient in a growing number of products (incl. gums, mints, chewable vitamins, and many others) highlights the importance of reading ingredient labels, as well as the danger of assuming that what's safe for you, or even your kids, is also safe for your pets.

Below are their current packaging label (from their website) and their website FAQ on xylitol.

Product Description


In the meantime, please learn more about the danger xylitol poses to dogs and the range of products xylitol is commonly found in. And since awareness is truly crucial to helping people avoid xylitol toxicity in dogs, please share what you’ve learned here with your dog-owning and dog-loving friends and family.

If you think your dog has eaten xylitol. Please contact a pet poison control hotline away and they'll be able to guide you as to what to do next.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Yummy Dog Treats for Those Hot Summer Days


Help your pooch cool down on hot days with tasty doggie popsicles. They’re not only simple, but easy on the wallet as well. Below are some homemade popsicle recipes that will surely keep Fido cool and content this sunny season.

Homemade Pupsicle Recipe Ideas

1. Whole-fruit Pupsicles. Begin by mixing 4 cups of water, 1 cup of chopped fresh fruit, and 1 tbsp. of molasses (dissolved in water) in a bowl. Just pick the fruit that your pooch loves the most (don’t forget to discard any of its pits or seeds!). Pour into popsicle molds or ice trays and freeze until solid.

2. Apple-Honey Pupsicles. Start by mixing 2 six-ounce containers of non-fat, plain yogurt, 2 tbsp. of peanut butter, 2 tbsp. of honey, and 1/3 cup of applesauce in a bowl. Pour into popsicle molds or ice trays and freeze until solid.

3. Chicken Pupsicles. Combine 1 cup of low-sodium chicken stock, ½ cup of water, and 1 ½ ounces of finely chopped chicken meat in a bowl. Pour into popsicle molds or ice trays and freeze until solid.

4. Bacon Pupsicles. Combine 1 cup of non-fat, plain yogurt, 1/3 cup of cinnamon applesauce, ¼ cup of milk, 3 ounce-bag of real bacon bits, and 3 tbsps. of maple syrup in a bowl. Pour into popsicle molds or ice trays and freeze until solid.

5. Banana-Peanut Butter Pup-cream. Prepare the following ingredients: 1 ripe banana, ½ cup of peanut butter, ¼ cup of wheat germ. Prepare by mashing the bananas and peanut butter together. Stir the mixture in wheat germ, and then pour into popsicle molds or ice trays and freeze until solid.

For an added treat, use a carrot stick or your dog’s favorite healthy, long crunchy treat as the popsicle stick! When using a popsicle mold, allow the mixture to partially set and insert the “stick” into each popsicle, then allow it to freeze completely.
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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Rockville, Maryland - Montgomery County Animal Shelter Is In Need of Supplies To Help With The Care of The Animals - Please Donate If You Can


From the Montgomery County Animal Shelter:

We need everyone's help again.
We are in need of the following items....

*Dog wired crates (all sizes) used for transport
*Paper towels
*Toilet paper
*Gas cards (any amount)
*Trash cans ( 32 gallon ) we only are in need of two please
*Beds(cat or dog)
*Peanut butter (without nuts used to stuff kongs)
* Deep freezer (used for frozen kongs)
*Air freshers
*Clorox wipes

If you can help, please contact them at:

Montgomery County Animal Shelter
601 South Stonestreet Avenue
Rockville, Maryland 20850
(240) 252-2555


Website: http://www.mchumane.org/







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