Do you have a favorite recipe for dog treats/biscuits?

[Pegasus]

I want to start making these at home for cost and safety reasons. I've started browsing the internet for recipes and many of them have ingredients I don't want to use (e.g., bouillon cubes = high sodium).  Ideally, the final result would be hard baked and large enough to insert in the dog's Kong to keep him entertained for a while as opposed to just gulping it down immediately.  Alternatively, maybe a treat that could be frozen and given that way.

 

This dog has no known food allergies but I'd love a treat that has mostly healthy ingredients.

 

Many thanks! 

 

Pegasus

[Pawz4me]

IME it's fairly difficult to make really hard, crunchy biscuits at home.  There's a recipe available online for homemade Milkbones, and that might come as close as you'll get.  I make that recipe sometimes and my dogs really love them (but that proves nothing since they've never met anything edible they didn't seem to love ;)).  When you make biscuits or any kind of dog treats yourself, you can cut them to whatever size you want, but you may need to adjust cooking time/temp a little.

 

I've never had any luck stuffing Kongs with hard treats.  My dogs can always get them out in a minute or so.  So I typically mash up a very ripe banana and add a little peanut butter.  If I have some plain yogurt on hand I'll throw some of that in the mixture.  Spread on the inside of Kongs and freeze.  Those keep my dogs occupied much longer than biscuits stuffed in Kongs.  Maybe I've just never mastered the art of stuffing Kongs with crunchy things?  You can also use canned dog food as a filler for frozen Kongs.  And I've used chicken or turkey baby food.

 

You can also dehydrate chicken or sweet potatoes, either in a food dehydrator or in the oven set on very low heat.

[jenn-]

These were a huge success here. You can cut or roll them to any size you need.

 

http://www.dogtreatkitchen.com/peanut-butter-dog-biscuit-recipe.html

 

Eta: these do come out hard if you follow the instructions. The peanut butter cookie looking shape even slowed my Boston terrier down and she is a power chewer.

[City Mouse]

I use a pumpkin and peanut butter dog treat recipe that I got from my AllRecipes app. It smells great when it is baking. Some of the neighbor kids have told me that they think it tastes good too. I have never tasted them myself, but there is nothing in the recipe that I wouldn't eat.

I make sweet potato chips in the microwave that my DS and the dog both like.

 

 

I did look up some recipes online that had meet products in them, but the idea of grinding up raw liver in my blender was just more than I can handle.

[Pegasus]

Thank you for the links and great ideas.  I've never tried fixing a Kong and freezing. That's a great idea. I will also try the recipes and see what works best.