Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese is a good source of protein so I include it in some of Gracie's meals. However, be aware most brands, including the one I use,  contain significant amounts of sodium. I use Daisy Brand Low Fat Cottage Cheese, small curd, 2% Milkfat. It contains no additives or preservatives and a very short ingredient list: cultured skim milk, cream, salt, vitamin A palmitate. Most other brands of cottage cheese at my grocery store contain a long list of additives.

One Gracie-sized serving of Daisy Brand Low Fat Cottage Cheese (small curd, 2% milk fat) contains:

Protein: 3.5 grams
Calcium: 2 percent of a human's recommended daily value for calcium (based on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet).
Sodium: 90 milligrams or 3.75 percent of a human's recommended daily value for sodium (based on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet).
Sugar: 1 gram (which seems like a lot of sugar for one Gracie-sized serving)

****POST UPDATE****: I discovered a new dairy food to add to Gracie's meals. It provides more protein and calcium than the two yogurts I feed Gracie (click here for more information) and significantly less sodium than the cottage cheese mentioned above. Find out what it is in my November 16, 2010 post.

Stuffed Animal Toys

When I adopted Gracie a neighbor visited and brought over a small stuffed animal toy to welcome my dog to her new home. Within a few days Gracie pulled the eyes off the toy but would do no further damage to it for months. Instead she carried it around and snuggled it when she slept. One day she happily tore it open and pulled all the stuffing out. She continued carrying around and snuggling the empty shell for a long time, even after I got her new stuffed toys to play with.

Gracie enjoys pulling apart stuffed animal toys like the ones shown in the above photo. She does it a little at a time, over the course of several days; usually when I'm relaxing in bed reading and she's laying next to me. Or when we're watching a movie. She likes to pull out all the stuffing and any squeakers hidden inside a toy, but she never swallows anything. She just shakes her head from side to side and spits it all out of her mouth. After that she'll carry the unstuffed toy shell around or snuggle it while she's sleeping for several weeks. The picture below shows a stuffed animal shell Gracie carried around and slept with for about two months.

The remarkable thing is that Gracie has never pulled apart or bothered with stuffed animal toys in the house that don't belong to her. She seems to know if the toy wasn't specifically given to her to play with, it's off limits.

Chicken Breakfast 5-12-09

Chicken

Whole wheat bread

Cooked barley

Cooked, grated carrot

Yogurt

Bone meal powder

Sunflower oil

Ground Beef Dinner 5-5-09

Seasoned ground beef cooked in canola oil

Homemade wheat bread

Cooked barley

Cooked cabbage

Yogurt