Tag Archives: dog

Homemade Dog Shampoo!

Posted on by Abi

Around the back end of last year I hit upon the idea of making my own soaps and handwash. I have naturally sensitive skin and this allowed me to use ingredients that I knew would benefit my skin and leave out those that didn’t, it was perfect!

It took me longer than it should of to realise that I could employ a similar rational when it came to my beloved pooch. He (like all dogs) tends to whiff a bit on occasion and I’m fairly intolerant of ‘dog smell’ in my own home. This led to semi frequent bathing with a store bought shampoo. It was heavy and took ages to wash out, then we had to endure wet dog smell for several hours until he was finally dry. It also seemed to strip the moisture from his skin despite being labelled ‘gentle’ and ‘sensitive’.

So with several choices available to me:

1. Bath him way less and come to terms with his dogginess.

2. Keep bathing him but his skin would become dry plus the hours of wet dog smell.

3. Make my own dog shampoo 🙂

I went with number three!

After reading much on the subject of a dog’s skin PH and scouring my cupboards for ingredients, this is the recipe I followed. It is an amalgamation of several I read, tailored to my little waggy chap.

Recipe

6-7 Sticks fresh Rosemary

Boiling Water

3 Tbsp Unscented Soap Grated

About 15 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

Cocoa Butter or Almond Oil

Method

First place the fresh rosemary into a saucepan, cover with boiling water and simmer for about 15 minutes. Leave to cool before straining out the leaves. I actually left mine to cool overnight, you might see an oiling film on the water if you do this.

Add the grated soap to your Rosemary water, then the Apple Cider Vinegar. Finally add about a Tbsp of Cocoa Butter of a few drops of Almond oil. Heat gently until the soap has melted.

Pour into a clean bottle.

To Use

Shower your pup in warm water and then start squeezing your homemade shampoo onto his skin. Mine didn’t lather a huge deal. Rinse thoroughly.

The Results!

Amazing he didn’t even smell when wet!!! His fur felt a little dryer at first but only for an hour or two. He actually dried off really quickly which was a huge bonus.

The Apple Cider Vinegar is a natural deodorizer (is there anything Apple Cider Vinegar can’t do!). Apparently you can combine it with water in a spray bottle and use it as an in between bath deodorizer for your dog as well, although I’ve yet to try that one.

 

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Meet the latest member of the Angel Eden family!

Posted on by Abi

My posts may have been a little sporadic recently and for that I apologise, but I promise I do have an excuse. My time has been rather taken up by a new addition to our family affectionately nicknamed ‘The Spotty Crocodile!’

We have always wanted a dog to join our happy little band and finally the time seemed right. After much research and discussion about breeds we finally settled on a Dalmatian. We were lucky to find the perfect breeders and eagerly waited to hear that their bitch had given birth. We then had to wait a long 8 weeks before our spotty darling could come home.

Life has been busy as you might imagine, but he is such a wonderful addition to the family that it’s hard to imagine life before him. He’s already proving to be very intelligent, learning many new tricks (not all of them taught by us I might add, such as how to undo zips and open cupboards). He also has a fondness for tottering across thin walls (agility in the future methinks) lying upside down and stealing cushions when he thinks you’re not looking.

He is bound to feature in many posts from now on so it seemed only right to introduce him properly, I may even get a video of him up here at some point, he has me in hysterics on a regular basis with his antics.

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Eggcellant Easter Eggs!

Posted on by Abi

I’m probably not the only parent who received a letter recently telling them that their children had to decorate an egg for school. This seems to be a yearly tradition where the kids get messy, the parents worry about the eggs cracking and the teachers judge whose is best. Last year I found out about the competition too late and my kids didn’t enter. So this year we tried to be a bit more prepared and set to work decorating eggs last night.

I started by looking online for some inspiration, there are some fantastic websites out there with all kind of eggy projects. A lot called for white eggs which I don’t think I’ve seen for years, but they were all very impressive and definitely competition worthy. My kids liked the idea of making their eggs into animals, I could only find instructions for farm animal eggs online, so we had to make ours up as my son wanted to make a Lion, my daughter a Dog and my youngest a ‘Dagon’ (translation – Dragon).

The lion is made by dying an egg yellow and then cutting up a pompom for his mane, cutting out ears and noses from foam and googly eyes.

The dog is made by dying an egg brown and then using pompoms for ears and nose, then foam nostrils and tongue and more googly eyes.

 

Then the Dragon was made by dying an egg green and attaching big googly eyes, a foam nose and wings. They all have pipecleaner legs and tails.

 

 

We also decided to make some marble eggs, to do this you dye an egg one colour first, then in a second pot of dye you add some oil (I used olive) and swirl the dye around the roll your eye in it and dry.

We made Cuthbert the happy egg.

Then Ceril the unhappy egg, he’s mainly unhappy because youngest dropped him and cracked his back 🙁

 

Then we made a Dinosaur egg.

 

The nice thing about these marble eggs is I don’t think there’s any reason you can’t eat them. The dye is all made from edible ingredients. Here is an unpeeled marble egg (as eaten by my husband).

Egg Dye Recipe

If you want to make some egg dye for yourself it’s really simple. Just take a small cup of hot water, add about 1 teaspoon white vinegar and then some food colouring. I used gel colouring to give a vibrant colour. Just roll your eggs around in the dye until they are the colour you want and then dry.

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