Elwood is our dog, he's a Lurcher and he has lived with us for about 6 years now.  We 'rescued' him from a Cat and Dog Shelter somewhere near Durham after seeing a picture of him online.  I am always reticent about using the term 'rescued' because it's not like I saved him from drowning or pulled him from a burning building but that's just me being a pedant I guess.

He is a very good looking dog although he was quite thin when we first brought him home as he'd been living out of bins on the mean streets of Durham for some time.  He's well and truly part of the family now, but he is an occasional black sheep.  You must never, and I stress never leave him access to the kitchen when you're not around.  We have got better over the years but periodically someone slips up and he'll have been in opening a cupboard or two, helping himself to whatever is at hand.  The highlights of his career have been a cooked ham (he is tall so can reach the bench), a full block of cheddar and a bag of flour.

He's about 11 years old now and like all Lurchers he is lazy around the house and loves lying around having a nap.  He's still (mostly) keen to go out for a walk but we don't let him run anymore because of his age.  We normally go dog walking in Tynemouth and North Shields so if you see us say hello, we definitey don't bite!

We made these the other day so I thought I'd share the recipe as they look great and our dog loves them!

Ingredients:

170g self raising flour
85g peanut butter
4 tablespoons of hot water
2 teaspoons of ginger
half an teaspoon of cinnamon

How to Make them:

1.  Preheat your oven to 200 degrees centigrade and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Mix up the peanut butter and hot water in a bowl.  Add the flour, ginger and cinnamon and mix it all thoroughly.
3. Add a splash of water and knead the mixture into a dough.
4 Roll it out until it is a quarter of an inch thick and cut out with your cookie cutter (we used a star shaped cutter but just use what you have at hand, your dog won't mind!).
5. Bake them for 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown.

That is a good question.  OK so it's two good questions.  This is normally the point I guess most good dog walking businesses should declare their undying love for all dogs, great and small and a hankering to be out and about no matter what the weather.  Well OK, fair enough I do love dogs, I even have one (Elwood - but more about him in subsequent blogs) and being a proper Geordie the weather doesn't worry me too much.  I might even put a coat on if it gets really cold.  As well that though I was looking to start something up that I thought I would enjoy, would be good at and would offer a degree of flexibility in my working day and family life.  I was also not looking for anything hugely complicated or stressful.  I am sure that dog walking companies can be hugely complicated and stressful but I don't intend to take over the world (at least not this week).  Right now just seems like the right time to start Coastal Dog Walkers so here we go, let's see what we can achieve by the end of 2015!