don't throw out that leftover canned pumpkin!

I am dealing with a conundrum: I had made some pumpkin pie ahead of time for Thanksgiving this week and found myself with half a can of pumpkin leftover. I thought to myself, “What to do….. What to do. I know! The dogs can benefit, but how?” This frozen pumpkin treat was my solution. I hope all your furry friends enjoy this frozen frugal treat!

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain yogurt (We used our homemade yogurt but anything store-bought works just as well)

• 1 cup pumpkin puree

• Optional: 1/4 bone broth (chicken or beef stock works fine too)

You can also just do an equal part pumpkin to yogurt if you have an odd amount.

Directions

1. Mix pumpkin, yogurt, and bone broth together in a bowl

2. Divide the mixture evenly into your molds (We got our molds here)

3. Freeze for 12-24 hours

4. Pop the treats out of the mold and put into a freezer bag for storage.

I had to use a spatula for these molds to fill in the crevices. You may also need to scrape to top excess to get uniformity for each treat.

Meet our Puppy Daddy!

Many of you have seen our planned mating announcement, but we would like to formally introduce our future litter’s sire. These puppies will be registered Northern Inuits through the Northern Inuit Association. Our first priority at our kennel is health. We want to see the Northern Inuit thrive for years to come. With every litter we produce, we want to always improve the genetic diversity and the phenotype to better meet the breed standard. For these reasons we have chosen Mij. Are you ready to meet him? We think he is pretty awesome. Who better to tell about him than his own human slave! Thank you Lynn at Redcliffe Kennels for this lovely introduction.

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“Hi everyone, we are Lynn and Rick and we live near Nottingham with our Caledonian Wolfalike Mij, an old akita and older GSD, and an ancient cat!

In 2015 we decided we were interested in the wolfalike breeds and were lucky enough to find an amazing couple in Fort William, Scotland, who were planning a litter.  Mij was born in March 2016 and we fell in love with him from the moment he was born.

Mij’s father is a registered Tamaskan, he is currently the oldest living UK Tamaskan and a great example of the breed.  He only sired this one litter of 6 puppies, kennel name Shanaki.

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Mij’s Father

His mother is a registered Caledonian Wolfalike, with a strong NI background.  The CW breed was previously called British Utonagan but that got confused with Utonagan!

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Mij’s Mother

Their history can be traced back to Togo – the famous sled dog from the serum run and recent Disney movie!

As Mij grew it became obvious he was a beautiful example of his breeding and we started the necessary health tests for him to be a stud dog.  He had great test results and with his breeder’s permission we made him available to breeders we felt were acting honestly and ethically, and that were moving the breeds forward and improving the gene pool.

The Forsaken Litter at Fireborn.
Photo credit Fireborn Northern Inuits & White Swiss Shepards.

Mij has two litters with Tracey and Andy Fowler at Honiahaka, an NI outcross litter with Korra from Danni at Fireborn – 11 amazing puppies in one litter! – and a litter of 10 Timber Dog puppies with Sequoia and Maggie Cox at Shima Onida. Sequoia is a registered Tamaskan and it’s been great to see the two different NI and Tamaskansides coming through.

Mij is firstly our family pet, he is a lovely affectionate boy, always wanting to be part of the fun and making us laugh.  He adores our grown up children and our grandson, and my dad.  He isn’t particularly interested in other people, he will accept them but is devoted to ‘his’ family unit and very affectionate with us.

He’s a good guard dog, he doesn’t bark much butwhen he does bark we know there’s someone around.  He also howls when the phone rings and sometimes we have a good old family howl!

He is happy to walk for miles or to lounge around on the sofa.  We take him on holiday with us in our caravan and he loves it, he’s travelled on canal boats and mini trains and he’s great in the car.

He does have a high prey drive which is so common with these breeds and will chase squirrels and rabbits so we are careful when we let him off lead.

We don’t have a website but Mij has his own Facebook page RedcliffeWolfalike and Instagram mij_the_wolf_dog

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Update: Covid-19

This spring is surely not shaping up quite like we had all envisioned!  Never in my wildest nightmares did I think we would be battling something like a corona virus!  What started out as an inconvenience has become very serious, a little scary, and left us feeling uncertain.  I have a beautiful pairing all planned for Rina (as well as a plan b and c).  However, the current health crisis necessitates that I skip Rina’s current breeding cycle.  As a responsible breeder passionate about healthy dogs, I simply won’t risk not having adequate vet care for my dog and puppies.  Additionally, it is very difficult to get frozen semen shipped and my veterinarian is NOT doing any elective, non-essential dog care right now.  While breeding Rina is important to me, it isn’t essential. Furthermore, while it seems that the summer will bring life a little closer back to normal, I wouldn’t want to risk having a litter of puppies in such uncertainty.   What does this all mean?  It just means we are all going to be a little more patient.  Rina should come into season again in late fall, and I will be completely ready.  I am keeping all of the puppy questionnaires I currently have, and I am happy to accept more.  If you would like me to disregard your questionnaire, just let me know.  Meanwhile, please stay safe out there.  I will keep you posted on all the things happening here. 

P.S. Rina would like everyone to know she is going to make the most of her “single” days chilling at the pool this summer.

We are LIVE!

We are so excited at IronSword to be launching our website. For all of the current Northern Inuit breeders that have been supporting us, thank you. To all of those interested in our future puppies also thank you. Without the breeders or the folks wanting a Northern Inuit of their own none of this would be possible. For those interested in an IronSword puppy please get in touch with us to receive your signature code to access our questionnaire. Thank you all again. We can’t wait to begin this new journey with you all. As always if any of you have a question please email us or message us on any of our social media pages.

Rina is so excited!!!!!!