Easy Homemade Dog Treats

Homemade Alternatives for Dog Treats

This is Sasha, our beautiful Mini Pinscher, who absolutely loves her easy homemade dog treats. She's sporting a pretty bow made by hand by our good friend, Heather Harton. Check out her fabulous work here. We've been doggie parents since April, and we have to say that Sasha has brought so much joy and delight to our lives. We're so grateful! And we believe that, as responsible pet owners, we have to take proper care of our "little girl", just as we would our own child. So, we do our best to find the best (and easy) healthy meals for Sasha. The easy part creates that balance between time spent and healthy rewards, which can sometimes be a chore. But if you're looking for easy homemade dog treats, then this is for you!

Since I'm the cook in our family, and I love to create new and exciting homemade meals, I thought, well, why not include Sasha's dog food in that category? After all, she's definitely worth it! Just like you're always on the lookout for the healthiest choices for your family and children, so should you be for your pets. Healthy easy meals are in abundance these days. All you have to do is search the Internet and you'll find everything you need to know about healthy eating, whether it be how to make homemade cookies, homemade mayonnaise, or how to create quick healthy snacks - including your pets, of course. So I came up with some easy dog treat recipes.

Homemade Dog Treats

When we first brought Sasha into our family, I made the decision that we were going to pay as much attention to feeding her healthy dog food as we do for ourselves. After all, she's a spirit just like us, right? And she deserves all the goodness life can give her. But how to create the best homemade dog treats may be a challenge. So off I went, into the cyber-world of research where, as I mentioned, you can find pretty well anything you need to know. I found what I needed to know quite quickly. In fact, there's a wealth of information on feeding dogs easy homemade dog treats - and baking them yourself! If you're any kind of cook, you can follow homemade dog treat recipes. They're no different from making quick healthy snacks for your own kids...and these are very healthy homemade dog treats, not your run-of-the-mill everyday dog food you can buy in any supermarket.

So here's a wonderful thing about family and friends - word of mouth. The first recipe I decided to make for Sasha actually came from a suggestion from my sister-in-law, Marnie MacCallum. Bless her heart for thinking of us when she came across this easy homemade dog treat recipe. And Sasha certainly appreciates the suggestion, too, because she loves them. These quick healthy snack ideas take no more effort than baking a batch of cookies. (And if you love cookies like I do, then you'll understand what I mean.) You can find the original recipe here. I've adapted it (as I do with most of my recipes from the Internet) to my own liking...and in this case, to Sasha's liking, too. After all, she's the one who gets to enjoy the product of all my homemade dog treat recipes.

Pumpkin Dog Biscuits

2 eggs

1/2 cup canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons dry milk
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 1/2 cups brown rice flour *
1 teaspoon dried parsley (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.

In large bowl, whisk together eggs and pumpkin to smooth. Stir in dry milk, sea salt, and dried parsley (if using, optional). Add brown rice flour gradually, combining with spatula or hands to form a stiff, dry dough. Turn out onto lightly floured surface (can use the brown rice flour) and if dough is still rough, briefly knead and press to combine.

Roll dough between 1/4 – 1/2″ – depending on your dog’s chew preferences, – and use biscuit or other shape cutter to punch shapes, gathering and re-rolling scraps as you go. Place shapes on cookie sheet, no greasing or paper necessary. If desired, press fork pattern on biscuits before baking, a quick up-and-down movement with fork, lightly pressing down halfway through dough. Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully turn biscuits over, then bake additional 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely on rack before feeding to dog.

* Brown rice flour gives the biscuits crunch and promotes better dog digestion. Many dogs have touchy stomachs or allergies, and do not, like many people I know, tolerate wheat.

Makes up to 75 small (1″) biscuits or 50 medium biscuits.

Now, as I mentioned, I change and substitute ingredients in recipes all the time. I believe that you use a recipe once, then adapt it to what works best for you. The possibilities are, well, almost endless! In this particular recipe, I didn't actually change any of the ingredients. I used the optional parsley (because I looked it up and that's healthy for your dog). And I rolled out the dough to about 1/4" thickness, then laid it on a cookie sheet. Then I used a pizza cutter to cut it in tiny pieces, about 1/4" square. You'll see in the picture of the finished product below, that I don't pay a lot of attention to uniformly cutting the dough. So the end result is a lot of slightly different sized pieces. But that doesn't matter at all. Sasha doesn't care what size her treat is, as long as she gets it!

So when these wonderful and easy homemade dog treats are done and cooled, I just put them into a Ziploc bag and freeze them. That keeps them really fresh and you obviously want your quick healthy snacks to be as fresh as possible! I just take out a handful at a time and keep them in a container for easy doling out when Sasha does something to deserve them...or when I'm training her.

And speaking of dog training, even though it's a little off topic, it's another necessary aspect of being a responsible dog owner. When you train your dog, you create a bond that brings many years of joy to both you and your dog. There are a number of online dog training systems available. For one example, Click Here!  And just to provide you with an alternative, you might want to choose this program: Click Here!

So the bottom line here is that homemade alternatives are always better and healthier for you and your pets. Homemade dog food is becoming much more popular these days. For example, here's an online resource that's invaluable if you're looking to make healthier choices for your dog: Healthy Food for Dogs: Homemade Recipes. There's also a big trend these days for going raw, and here's a great resource that states: Help Dog Owners Discover How To Put Their Dogs And Puppies On A Raw Dog Food Diet With This Complete Guide. A Raw Dog Food Diet, Which Is Made Up Of Raw Bones And Meat Is The Best And Most Appropriate Diet For Dogs For Them To Live Longer. If you think that's the best for your dog, check out Going Rawr! A Complete Guide To Putting Your Dog On A Raw Food Diet.

Enjoy your dog...and your dog will enjoy their homemade alternatives for dog treats!

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