Wednesday, January 13, 2016

How To Make Your Own Organic Gourmet Dog Treats

By Joyce Brooks


If you are like many other dog owners, you worry about what your pampered pooch is ingesting. While food is the main focus of concern for many dog owners, the treats that they eat are also something to be concerned about. One way to avoid potentially unhealthy ingredients is to make your own organic gourmet dog treats. Whether you are making them for your own canine or for other special dogs in your life, here are some tips that you can use to do so easily and safely.

Not all dogs can handle all ingredients. Some canines may have allergic reactions to certain types of protein but will be okay with others. Other canines may not be able to handle wheat, gluten or other sources of carbohydrate. Still other dogs will have medical conditions that will require their treats to fall within certain nutritional guidelines. A good example of this is diabetes which a lot of dogs are affected by. If you are unsure how a particular ingredient will affect your dog, you should consult your veterinarian before doing any baking.

The next thing to do is to familiarize yourself with which ingredients are harmful to pets. Some, such as chocolate, onions and raw garlic can end up being quite toxic to pets and should not be included in the treats that you want to make. There are substitutions that you can make such as using carob in the place of chocolate.

You should think about whether you want to make flavored biscuits or whether you want to go for a more meat-based treat. Then you can start searching for recipes that will meet your preferences and your dog's nutritional needs.

Many dog owners have seen their canines go nuts for dehydrated liver. While most of this kind of treat is made from beef liver it is possible to dry out any kind of animal liver. One of the easiest ways to do this is by using a food dehydrator but there are other ways to heat it slowly so that it dries out and bakes rather than cooking.

You can also dehydrate strips of meat or turn them into jerky. Beef is a popular choice but other types of meat and vegetable such as sweet potato can also be turned into jerky. You may want to flavor meat before turning it into jerky but you should make sure that any flavorings are also pet safe.

A lot of people like the idea of baking biscuits or cookies for their dogs. They can be easy to make and may be less expensive to prepare than liver or other meat. If you want to change the flavor you can add ingredients such as pure pumpkin, honey, unsweetened peanut butter or pureed sweet potato. Just remember to make sure that you are not adding ingredients that could make your pet sick.

There are so many different types of treats that you can make for your canine companion. Once you start experimenting with different options you may never want to buy snacks at the store again.




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