We adopted our dog about 12 years ago from a lob rescue. Before then, I had never had a dog. Tony, however, grew up having dogs. I swear it took longer to adopt our dog than it did for me and Tony to get married! The rescue people were overly cautious about who adopted their dogs. They even interviewed us separately and asked “is your husband forcing you to get a dog?”
After a home visit, and us visiting the dog in Milwaukee – we knew we wanted him, but there was a one week waiting period in case we changed our minds. Finally we got our dog!
But since I never had a dog, I remember going to Petco and buying him a bed (which he hated), lots of expensive toys and treats. The first toy I got him cost like $9 bucks, and he had it torn up to pieces in about an hour. And the bone I bought for $4? Gone in about 5 minutes.
I quickly learned that garage sale toys and smoked necks from my grocery store would be the more frugal way to treat our dog. Here is another treat we give our dog. I don’t know how he got into the habit (okay me!) of getting a treat every time he walked back in the door, but he does. And he’ll whine and whimper if he doesn’t get it.
Meat Ends. Yep, I buy meat ends from my grocery store deli. If you store doesn’t sell them, just ask for them. I get a whole package for .99 cents and it usually lasts about a week.
It’s just the scraps of deli meat that they can’t slice anymore – he loves them!
Who knows, maybe your dog will like them too?
My store had a six pack of mini foccacia breads for $1.27 – yum! I made a breakfast sammie – 1 bread, 1/2 cup egg whites, baby spinach, a slice of corned beef, mozzarella cheese – 387 calories, 12 fat, 31 carbs, 1.5 fiber and 33 protein.
I forgot my camera at home, can you tell? 
I wanted to do the Expresso bike machine, but someone else was on it. I happened by Fitnessista’s blog, which I haven’t been on in ages! She had a treadmill workout and it was perfect. (and she uses the word amazeballs!)
I like how the incline increased and the speed increased – a great workout!
I was busy at work yesterday, so a quick lunch at my desk when I got back – the last of my Cincinnati chili, 1/2 ounce of cheese and 1 ounce of tortilla chips on the side – 507 calories, 34 fat, 21 carbs, 4 fiber and 25 protein.
It’s bosses day today – I had planned on making corn bread and banana muffins last night – I had already made the chili for our lunch, but turns out two partners aren’t in the office today, so we postponed the lunch until Friday. I had planned on spending a lot of time in the kitchen last night, so I had burgers on the menu which was super quick.
My burger: 4 oz. patty, 110 calorie bun, 1 ounce of Kettle chips and to balance it all out, half a sliced apple. When I look back on my food for today, I don’t see many fruits or veggies, do you? 
The best part of my burger? The pickled cherry peppers – I put them in the pan the burgers were cooked in to sauté them before topping them on my burger – so fricken good! Dinner comes in at 577, calories, 30 fat, 42 carbs, 4.5 fiber and 33 protein.
My mom was right that the picture of my brother yesterday was spring of 1968. Had I just looked further on the disk, the next set of pictures is of me and my twin sister as infants.
And I looked even further – and you have to check out my brothers full outfit – I never noticed the bunnies on the knees of his pants – Mom, did you make those?
I had a bunch of Italian sausage leftover from our deep dish pizza night, so I had to make more . . . lasagna soup! It’s on the menu for lunch today – can’t wait! Suzie, I hope you are feeling better and congratulations on your grandson!
I’m starting to think you might need a lasagna soup intervention, Biz. LOL! I still haven’t tried it but I totally plan to. I loved reading about Ed (is that your dog’s name?) and your cheap treats idea. I don’t know if our deli does that but it’s worth looking into! We also learned the best toys are the cheap ones-haha! Plus she seems to like them even more b/c they have ‘other people’ smell on them when I bring them home. I just started Jessie on a new dog food I found at Walmart that uses all natural ingredients (chicken, brown rice, vegetables) with no fillers (when I started looking at the expensive foods, thinking they’d be best, I was surprised that even Iams has cornmeal as a top ingredient-boo). It’s called Pure Balance and is in a black bag–you should check it out unless you’re already got him on a special food. We just fed Jessie Purina until I realized we could afford to improve her food. It’s $17.50 for 15 lbs. She LOVES it and I feel like a better dog mom now. I hope it helps with her skin problems.
I am having that soup again for lunch today – I think I do need an intervention!!
I wonder if my cats would like scraps like that! I know what you mean about adopting pets. They really grill you.
I love love love the sound of that burger, especially of pickled cherry peppers! YUM!
Love Charlie’s bunny patches – and Claire and Mark asked which one was you? Don’t know!
Pixie is totally spoiled, but she has absolutely no interest in people food, which is a good thing. I think as a stray she wasn’t used to food other than mice and she loves her wet food (aka crack) and dry kibble, but nothing else. My other cat we had for 18 years ate all kinds of people food and she was tiny. Her favorite was any kind of dorito or anything with dairy in it LOL!
My dogs are the most spoiled things on the planet but they have never had delicious meat ends, I must inquire on their behalf. I think it is awesome the rescue is so thorough about placement, so many dogs end up back in ‘the system’ because of bad placement and uninformed adopters. I am loving all the old photos!
My stomach is grumbling right now just looking at the burger. Holy crap, I need one ASAP!
My dogs cant eat poultry, they get the runs( TMI, I know). Glad your dog gets to have a nice cheap treat.
It’s usually mostly sausages, ham and roast beef – not sure I’ve ever seen chicken in the meat ends? Are you loving your insulin pump?
My doggies are rotten too. Our outside dog is a black Lab who is a total baby but 100% my husband’s dog, and our inside doggie, my baby for sure, is a mutt. They told us she was a Beagle/Jack Russell mix, but she is way too big to be either breed. I don’t know what she is :D, but they both get reguarly spoiled with treats and bones!
Awww…lucky pup! what a great idea. LOVE the pics of you and Jenn, and Charlie and his bunny pants. Thanks for sharing these wonderful shots with us. Have a great day Vat.
Meat ends! Paco would love that. He thinks he needs a treat, well, anytime really – but yes, when he comes back inside he always heads for the treat jar.
Love the bunny patches. I remember my brother tearing through his pants knees as a boy until my mom discovered the Sears Toughskins. Funny thing though – my boys never tore through their pants, and I didn’t buy Toughskins, either.
I like those cherry peppers – never thought to put them on a burger but yum, they look good!
The cherry peppers made the burger! 😀
Hmmm…I’ll have to watch what our deli’s do to the meat ends, I’m almost positive they just toss it in the trash. It’s just as well since my pug has a weight problem and I need to carefully monitor what he eats anyways. Not too many treats for him! Just like his mama! 😀
I wish I could buy that kind of stuff for Frank. Due to the way their mouth/jaw is…they have issues eating bones of most kind. We have to stick to the little doggy bones. Gotta love a good sale on bread. Yayy for soup
awww love the baby pics! Thanks for sharing!!
At my house, the meat ends do not go to the dog. A couple of times a year, usually in hot weather I do a chef salad dinner I specifically go to the grocery store and buy the meat and cheese ends for that. Believe it or not, sometimes they are hard to get.
I’ve actually never thought to chop it up in a salad like that – we get the cheese ends too, but I usually eat those, not the dog!
Cool idea on the meat ends, I’ve never seen them before. I’ll be sure to ask. My doggies are spoiled too! I love the bunnies on Charlie’s pants. Not sure if I told you before but, my husband is a twin too. I totally need some lasagna soup, that sounds perfect. Thanks for your kind words Biz…xoxo!
One of the “bunnies” appears to be peeling off! They were probably custom-made (by me) knee patches – Charlie wore through the knees of his pants regularly, so iron-on knee patches were always in my sewing basket.
The picture of Charlie is absolutely adorable. My 5 year old son has been wearing through the knees of his pants since his crawling days. Thank goodness for hand-me-downs. However, my little guy would probably really dig the bunny patches as his favorite toy is still his big stuffed bunny, named simply “Bunny.”
Ah, it never dawned on me that they were knee patches!!
No photos of your pup??
I’ll put one up for you tomorrow Alex! 😀
Our dog is the same…a cookie every time she comes in. I can’t say she doesn’t deserve it, she always comes when I call her…unlike kids. lol meat ends…I might have to look into that.