Tag Archives: dog treat recipe

Treats for Cayde

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Cayde

When we moved into our new home in the summer of 2017, I promised Mathew and my Mom that we would get a dog. They wanted a puppy but, honestly, I just didn’t think I had it in me to do the training; sure Mathew and Mike promised to help, but the bulk of the work would be on me. I am home more than they are. The idea of a puppy was wonderful, but the initial investment and work was far more than I was willing to add to my already overflowing plate.  So for over a year, I looked online weekly and visited shelters. As with house hunting, we had very clear requirements and weren’t going to take the first available dog; it had to measure up. Finally, we found Max (now known as Cayde) for Mathew’s 15th birthday at the local SPCA. We are still in the honeymoon stage but he is a wonderful, sweet and extremely gentle dog. Gentle is very important because my 87 year old Mom uses a walker and is a bit unsteady. When she walks, Cadye gives her room but watches her attentively. He is very smart, and with a treat available, he learned to sit, on his first day, so Mathew could put on his harness. Perhaps, we can teach him to push my Mom’s ottoman into place when she needs help. He is definitely strong enough.

We have no information about Cayde’s past life. All we know is that he came from a kill shelter in Alabama and was flown up to Ithaca the week we adopted him. The SPCA said he was around 2 years old, but our Vet thought he was more likely 4 or 5, given his teeth and his disposition. He is sooooo mellow, too mellow to be a 2 year old. We wanted to start the relationship off well with clear rules and boundaries, so we got him a crate to sleep in, at least in the beginning, and when we need to leave him unsupervised. We got him a Kong to play with and to stuff with treats. It bounces, so he can play catch with himself. As a bonus, my Mom can gently toss it so he is occupied  with trying to catch it. What a cleaver toy!

The milk bones we bought are a bit too big to stuff in a Kong, so I decided to make special treats for Cayde for that purpose. At the SPCA, they stuffed peanut butter into it, froze it, and tossed them into the rooms at night. This is they way they said goodnight to the dogs. Frankly, peanut butter seemed too messy to deal with, Cayde is not one of those vacuum cleaner dogs. He rarely licks up the crumbs from the milk bones.

I searched the internet and books in the library for examples of dog treats and then experimented with recipes. I finally adapted a recipe by Anne Jonna from book her “The Healthy Dog Cookbook”.  It contains all the elements of a great recipe – easy, limited effort, natural ingredients, and yummy.  I am able to shape the treat into balls so I can create the perfect treat plug for the Kong, plus when they sit around for a couple of days after you bake them, they bounce ~ another added bonus.

Peanut Butter Ball Treat

Mash up 1 banana

½ cup water

3 heaping tbsp. peanut butter

1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour

Mix ingredients, wet hands and roll into balls.

Bake 350° for 20-25 minutes

Makes about 24

Treat in Kong

Store in jar, keeps for about a week, but they disappears faster.

 

Making treats for Dylan

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Dylan has separation anxiety. One theory is to give a dog a treat that keeps them occupied while we are gone. Some people give their dogs a Kong that are stuffed with treats that are hard for their dog to remove; others give their dogs puzzle boxes that require a series of moves/taps to extract treats. Most of the toys are made out of synthetic materials and it just seemed wrong to me to have Dylan chew on synthetic toys.  I gave him a raw cow bone, which he loved. Every day when I returned I would put it in the refrigerator so it did not rot too fast. What I noticed was that he just couldn’t get all the marrow out and would start to chip the bone apart, so that seemed like a bad idea too. Mike made some wonderful Vietnamese Beef Pho soup one day and used a fresh meat bone for the broth. When he was done using the bone for the soup, we gave it to Dylan and he loved it. I also noticed it was a lot more solid than the raw bone and did not splinter. So I decided to stuff it with treats, you can call it a “natural version of the Kong.”

I started with stuffing milk bones into the cow bone but they just slid out. What I needed to do was to find a treat that could plug the bone on either side, creating a challenge for Dylan, occupying him while we are gone. I tried a bunch of treats from the store but nothing really worked well, or the ones with natural ingredients were just too expensive.

Therefore, I decided to make my own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I searched the internet and books in the library for examples that I experimented with. I finally adapted a recipe by Anne Jonna from book her “The Healthy Dog Cookbook”.  It contains all the elements of a great recipe – easy, limited effort, natural ingredients, yummy.  I am able to shape the treat into balls so I can create the perfect plug for the cow bone Dylan loves them.  Even Mathew and his friend enjoyed them, hence I needed to put them away and explain that they were for Dylan. Unfortunately, the whole exercise has been futile. The goal was to occupy Dylan while we were away, thus reducing his anxiety.  Although he loves the bone filled with treats, sadly, he does not eat the bone while we are away; he waits until we get back and then eats it. When I let him out of his crate, he simply runs out with the bone in his mouth, pees and then goes back into the crate to work on his bone. Cesar Millan, where are you when we need you?

Peanut Butter Ball Treat

Mash up 1 banana

½ cup water

3 heaping tbsp. peanut butter

1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour

Mix ingredients, wet hands and roll into balls.

Bake 350° for 20-25 minutes

Makes about 24

Store in jar, keeps for about a week, but they disappears faster, especially when boys find them.