Last weekend, my boyfriend, Kipp, and I went out and adopted ourselves the cutest dog in the whole world (see photo below)! Things have been running quite smoothly with our four-month-old labrador/collie mix. She's housebroken, she can stay alone in the house for up to two hours at a time (without causing too much trouble - the odd chewed plant and a chewed up favourite slipper aside) and she's already our new best friend, madly wagging her tail whenever she sees one of us. But, I do have one little complaint. Dear little Scout is getting in the way of our attempts to greenify our lives! Obviously not thinking far enough in advance, we've totally cut plastic bags out of our lives. Like everyone else these day, we shun them so quickly, never thinking we might need one, or two, or three, or four A DAY (I'm serious). Little did I know, I'd be needing those plastic bags in the close future to pick up doggy doo doo! Last week, I went around to ask all my friends to donate their plastic bags to our worthy cause, until we can figure out a proper green method. After all, Scout doesn't wait to do her dirty business. According to National Geographic's Green Guide and Adria Vasil's Ecoholic, I have A LOT to learn about greening my pet. To quote Vasil, "If you're walking your pooch three times daily and he's got an active digestive system and lives to be, say, 16, that's 17,520 bags worth!" YIKES! I'm not off to a good start. I just visited www.biobag.com to order biodegradable and compostable bags - they'll only take about 40 days to break down, as opposed to the 100 years it takes for regular plastic bags to break down. I can now scoop without guilt! I would also like to try some DIY pet food, so I'm on the hunt for info on how to do so. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated! Do you have any pets? Are they "green"? Have you tried to make pet food from scratch? How did it turn out? Any advice for greening my dog? Here's Scout, just so you can put a face to the name (ain't she cute?):