Category: Uncategorized

Doggie Buff-Day Cupcake!

Just like most celebrating a birthday is a big deal. So, for us celebrating our dogs birthday is no different.

There are so many options when it come to choosing the type of cake or cupcake you can make or your four-legged family member!

First is choosing the size of cake you would like to make. You can make a big statement with a full-size birthday can and cut out a piece for your dog or you can make individual cupcake sized ones, so you don’t need to worry about the cutting or be too worried about the portion size.

As more than 50% of the United States dogs population was surveyed as overweight or obese in 2018 (Ward). Keeping in mind portion size and even the amount of daily food consumption on the day of the celebration is important. If you are not comfortable in cutting out your dogs meal or meals of the day of the celebration I would recommend cutting back their portion size as taking the cake as a portion of their daily food intake. You can also do as we do and feed your pups their normal portion of food for the morning and count the cake as their dinner.

Next thing to choose is the type of cake. When choosing the type of cake for your pup try to keep in mind things that they enjoy eating. Also keep in mind allergies your dog has or may potentially have. Dogs GI tract are not as long as humans so if something upsets there stomach it wouldn’t be long after their treat that you would see results that something doesn’t agree with them.

For this cake we wanted to go back to what is known as the dogs ancestral diet or species appropriate diet. Which consist of primarily high protein and fat with very little carbohydrates (Becker & Taylor).

We chose to go with a meatloaf type cupcake with the following ingredients. Keep in mind that most of these ingredients can be interchangeable to agree with your dogs dietary requirements and or likes. Something we also try to strive for is giving our pups as much organic as we can just like we do for ourselves!

Ingredients:

• 1-1¼ lb. ground meat
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ c rolled oats
• 4 medium stalks of celery
• 1 medium to large apple of your choice
• ¼ c 2% milk
• ¼ c chicken stalk
• 4 red potatoes boiled and mashed
• dash of salt to taste
• frozen or fresh peas for garnish
• muffin tin
• cupcake decorating materials *optional

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350°. Peal skin off your potatoes and place into boiling water. Boil until potatoes fall off when pierced.

Step 2: Chop up apple and celery into small pieces.

Step 3: Combine meat with all wet (meat, eggs, milk and stock) ingredients by hand or with a mixer.

Step 4: Combine all dry (oats, apples and celery) ingredients into the wet ingredients. I would recommend folding these ingredients in by hand or with a spoon as to not crush the apples and celery.

Step 5: Take the mixed meat loaf ingredients and put into the oiled muffin tin. Make a mound on the top of each muffin as these are not like normal cupcakes and they will not rise. Place in the oven at 350° for about 30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean when poked into the center of cupcake.

Step 6: While the cupcakes are baking take your boiled potatoes and place them in your clean mixer. Mix the potatoes until they are smooth like frosting. You may need to add additional water or stalk to help smooth things out. At this point I added a pinch of salt for taste. The potatoes are something you can also make ahead of time and just reheat to make it smooth enough to work with.

Step 7: Once your muffins are fully cooked and your mashed potatoes a cool enough to manage, take a piping bag and fill it with your mashed potatoes. Add the mashed potatoes to the top of your muffin like frosting.

Step 8: Place the peas around the cupcake to garnish. You can also use an additional apple slice to add a little extra to the top of the cupcake.

Now grab the balloons, presents and doggie friends, its time for the party.

Make sure to have your camera close by as all the action will happen quickly once these delouse treats are laid out.

Starting a Small Business in a Small Town Part 2

After reading over the steps in the link that I found in starting your business, I was still unsure and uncomfortable that I was going to do things incorrectly and frankly I didn’t know anything about most of steps. I read over it several times and decided to take it as it was listed one step at a time.

Step One: Write business plan (wasn’t my first step and frankly still haven’t written a formal one).

I was excited and I wanted to make things happen fast. I thought to myself I’ll write the business plan later.

As ‘Shark Tanks’ Barbara Corcoran said in the ‘FoxBusiness’ interview, “a business plan is nonsense. It’s Harvard Business School way of thinking, and it doesn’t even work. You get out there, and life happens.” (Rogers).

Step Two: What is your business entity?

What, what does that mean? I mean I kind of knew what it meant but I didn’t fully so Yes, I Googled it. There were so many to choose from. After talking with my hubby, we both decided that starting a Sole Proprietorship for “now” and when the funds were more available (business cash flow available) I could switch to an LLC. Which didn’t take me long to change my mind. The thought of only one crazy person coming in and taking all, we have worked for. So, I switched to LLC shortly after already paying the fees to set up the sole proprietorship.

Step Three: What is your business name?

This was easy. As I had mentioned before I had a name picked out several years ago before I even got started. However, I will say that originally I want the business name to just be Praising Paws but someone already had that name taken when I tried to register it on GoDaddy. I was not willing to let that name go so I compromised and went with ‘Our Praising Paws’. Hopefully one day I will be in the position to be able to buy that name from the current owner.

Step Four: Register Your business with the IRS (still don’t know if I did this right).

They are wanting you to file for what they call a EIN number. You can do this by going to https://sa.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp . Be ready to give your personal social security number when filling for your EIN. You must have this before your register with the state.

Get Your state Tax Registration and License and permits.

Holy Jesus take the wheel. This by far was the worst part. This is where things got ruff “see what I did there”.

I touched base with a friend of mine who already owns a business and asked her what or how I go about doing this. Again, I had no idea what I was doing. Even after reading everything online I was still nervous that I wasn’t doing the right thing.

I started out with calling the Arkansas Secretary of State to figure out what steps to take. Which referred me to the Secretary of State for my area. They proceeded to tell me that I needed to contact my County. I contacted the county clerk, the assessor’s office, even the county circuit office. No one in my county knew anything about filling for a state business license. Mind you all these calls did not happen within a day or in a timely manner. It was weeks… Every time I called there was the waiting on the phone for “the next available representative” thing and then them trying to figure out what I was asking for then you got the run around or them referring you to someone else.

I was so frustrated and wanted to pull my hair out, but I wasn’t going to give up. I ended up calling my boarder state Secretary of State office and it was all made clear. They stated that some small towns don’t require certain licensing, or they do not have enough demand to make it worth their while. ‘Light bulb’ that makes since. With the town I live in only have a population around three hundred something and the closest larger town not knowing where to send me. However, I still needed a ligament way to make sure I was doing it right. Then the heavens opened, and the paws started praising. The gentlemen on the phone who was by far the most helpful and acted like he had time for me, told me about the site. SBA U.S. Small Business Administration https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/10-steps-start-your-business/ where they give you step by step instructions. I am sure that many would say, how could you have not known about this… its not that hard. Well all I can say is that everyone has their own wheel house and all the ends and outs of starting a business was not in mine. All dogs can learn new tricks though and just because I want to have my own business does not mean that I must be an expert and every single part of the business.

After getting myself legally set up I am still figuring things out daily and I will continue to do so. It is all a big learning process and I am happy to be doing it. I am so grateful for the ability to purse my passion. I am grateful for all my supporters who have been with me since the beginning and I am grateful for my husband who is continuously my sounding board and reminding me daily that I can do this and that he is proud of me.

Thank you and keep your eyes peeled for Our Praising Paws!

Works Cited

Rogers, Kate. Barbara Corcoran: Business Plan Not Built to Last. Fox Business, 20 May 2013. Web.

IRS, ed. EIN Assistant. IRS.gov, n.d., Web. 23 May. 2019.

U.S. Small Business Administration. 10 steps to start your business. SBA. n.d., Web.. 23 May. 2019.

Starting A Small Business In A Small Town Part 1

If I knew then what I know now. A famous quote and many have said and lived. The truth stands true in my situation as well. If I knew I could have saved myself weeks on knowing what to do to get started. I am a rule follower (most of the time) so when it came to me starting up my small business I wanted to make sure I did everything right and I didn’t leave out anything.

I had dreamed and talked about starting my own business for as long as I could remember. I’m not sure if it was a suggestion from a friend when I brought up the subject “I need to start my own thing” for the millionth time or that my working for someone else for the rest of my life or the worry of how I would bring in money when we started to have a family that really pushed me over the edge. Maybe it was all of it.

None the less I had made it up in my mind that I was going to start, it was time to rip the band aid off and just get started. Mind you I do have a few degrees and work experience but absolutely not in “business”. I had no idea what I was doing, how to get started, the rules, where I go to find these answers out, and I didn’t just want someone opinion and what they felt what was important but I wanted to abide by the rules.

I had already had a separate Facebook and Instagram page for my passion already going. And after talking to my friend who was also in the process of starting her own business she mentioned setting up a website and how you could do it “free” on Wix.com, she also gave me a name of a business women that she had been listening to and that I should give her a listen. So, I did that very night, I looked up this business women on YouTube because I am obsessed with YouTube just like much of the world. This lady was laying it out. Words of wisdom, motivation, important things to think about in starting a business and not to put all our eggs in one basket. I was fired up, I couldn’t wait for the weekend to be able to spend some time setting up this thing up that I have been dreaming about forever. After listening to this motivational business women, I decided I was going to do it all. Services, selling, blog, eBook anything and everything. I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. I was going to brand myself as she calls it because the world changes and changes fast then what will you do if you have closed yourself into this small area.

So that weekend I started a website for free on Wix.com, well I really had no reason not to do it now or to at least work on it since it was free, right? That very weekend I got started. I began answering the questions asked when setting up my website. What is your website for? Does your website need, Sell online, take bookings, get subscriptions, create a blog? I checked all of the above. The next question was What do you want the name of your website to be? This one was easy I have had my business name picked out for almost two years before I had the guts to really get started. As I got further into the setting the site up more and more questions and then the questions became more serious. Then there it was, because I wanted to set up a portion to sell, there came the tax questions and what is your state business tax number? It just got real, should I back out? No, I decided I was going to do this and no matter how long it was going to take me I was going to make this happen. For the next few days I just piddled on the website with the look, colors, layout etc. you know the fun “easy” stuff. Then as the look started to come together, the voice in the back of my head about the state business license number was ringing in my head.

I googled “How do I start a business”. Many things popped up, what do I choose? I was excited so I choose the most fast to the point post of bullet points of steps to take in starting a business. And so it began.

To be continued…