Dog Days of Summer

In anticipation of the addition of two new family members, I thought I should do a little baking. Give the new girls a Welcome Home treat. So I cracked open the cookbook and baked something I’ve never baked before. Dog treats.

I’d run across a recipe for dog treats a couple years back in a dessert cookbook I’d picked up, but I never had a reason to try it out. From reading it, I knew that dog treats involved ingredients that I have in my pantry and that they didn’t appear to be too difficult to make. When LA first got a dog, we got some treats from Deborah’s Kitchen Kreations. Minimal ingredients and no preservatives. Plus, Mr. Piddlesworth seemed to enjoy them.

Once I knew I would be getting my own dog, I started looking at the dog treats on the market. The inexpensive ones had an ingredient list as long as my arm. The treats with a short, and reasonably healthy, ingredient list were prohibitively expensive. That’s when I decided to make my own.

Dog treat canisters made by LA

I ran across a dog treat cookbook that received rave reviews on Amazon. It even came with its own bone-shaped cutter! I bought the book and got to work. The cutter that came with the book was as big as my puppy would be, so I picked up some smaller cutters elsewhere. I also thought it might be a good opportunity to make treats in different shapes and sizes. To keep things interesting for the puppies.

The first batch I made was made with flour, margarine, chicken broth, and cornmeal. I went with a bone shape for those. They smelled delicious in the oven and tasted like a salt-free chicken cracker. The next batch had peanut butter, oats, whole wheat flour, water, and vegetable oil and were in the shape of gingerbread men. The dough smelled like cookies. We couldn’t wait to try them. Halfway through cooking, they began to smell like burnt peanut butter, which really is not all that appetizing. I bit into one once they were done. I couldn’t taste the peanut butter. They just tasted like dry. LA didn’t understand that description until he tried one, too.

Once we picked up the puppies, we wanted to try out the freshly-baked treats. The chicken treats were far too big, so I gave my puppy, Orson, a peanut butter man. She licked it. Then she ignored it. She had the same reaction to Deb’s chicken kitty treats and some puppy brownies (made with cream cheese and carob) that I got from another vendor at the farmers’ market. Her favorite treats are cheddar cheese and bananas. My dog treat baking days were over. And they only lasted for one day.