Something to bark for

Instead of making Christmas cookies to give to neighbors and friends, I decided to make doggie cookies, as most of our friends have dogs. I found a pretty basic recipe online that has pumpkin puree, peanut butter, eggs, whole wheat flour and a bit of cinnamon. Somewhere I have some dog bone cookie cutters, but I cannot find them, so I ordered some for $3 from Amazon (paid for with my MTurks earnings). The other night I tried out a batch. The resident taste testers approved :)

I bagged them up in cute little bags and tags. We gave these 2 to the guy who did our mason work. He had always brought one of his 2 dogs with him to work each day. He stopped by yesterday, because DH was taking him over to woodworker guys place, because woodworker guy is going to make a bar countertop for mason guy, as he had seen our bar countertop and wanted something done like that in the house he is building. I need to make at least another batch, as I want to give some to our neighbors with the four dogs and our other neighbors, the young couple down at the end of our street, just got a new puppy last week.

Speaking of dogs. Neighbors new rescue dog continues to be a challenge. He has separation anxiety and that doesn't work too well with Mrs gone like 10-12 hours a day and Mr. often gone for hours at a time. Add in that all the dogs can go in and out the doggy door to either go outside or inside whenever they want.......well the new dog just barks non-stop outside. Tuesday he started barking again around 4:30pm, because someone pulled into our driveway. Dh left with his friend and neighbors dog barked non stop until neighbor got home, at almost 6pm. I had already asked them last week if they could try out the bark collar (they used before on their other dogs, and son's dog, and fixed the issue) on the new dog. She said Mr was supposed to put him inside kennel when he left but apparently he didn't that day. Mr did text my dh Tues evening after he got home, asking how dog did, so of course DH had to tell him he barked non-stop. Mr sent me an email yesterday morning that he had to go to the city for a meeting for part of the day, but was taking dog with, but today he had to be gone all day and that is too long to leave him in the crate inside, so they are going to try the bark collar, but if he just keep barking, could we just remove it, as they don't want him inflicting pain to himself all day. He said they will figure out a solution one way or another. I guess they had him boarded with the trainer his original owner used while they went on their trip 2 weeks ago. Trainer said the dog is an "Omega" male. Which apparently means he's not Alpha or Beta, he just does whatever he wants to do and is not really into "pack rules".

I've been having problems with my work computer's "file explorer" for the past month. Sometimes it's there and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes part of it is accessible. IT worked on it several weeks ago, but the problem came back. The next time I put in a help ticket, while I was waiting for them to call me, I restarted the computer and that seemed to fix it, so they didn't do anything. Then it started up again this week. Well, the guy thinks my computer got a virus, so I got shut down from working yesterday afternoon, while they work on it, and so far this morning I cannot work. I am able to get into my Outlook and access our payroll website directly from my computer, so I am working on payroll stuff this morning. Making sure all the PTO in the payroll system matches our company out of office calendar and that everyone's time off will get charged on the next payroll. UGH. I did not need this right now when I'm super busy with work before year end and trying to get stuff done by Friday so I can take off days the rest of the year.