Dogs Love School

 Let's face it, dogs like treats. The good news is that using treats as training rewards is a great way to gain your dog's enthusiastic cooperation and attention. But training treats need to be small (pea-size to bean-size), so you can reward your dog for LOTS of good behaviors, and treats need to be made from healthy ingredients, or they could contribute to ill-health or obesity.

 Sugar, salt, and artificial flavorings and colorings are generally not healthy for dogs, yet many commercially available dog treats include those ingredients. This page offers recipes for tasty, healthy training treats you can make at home. 

 If your dog has allergies to any of the listed ingredients, you may be able to use non-allergenic substitutes instead. For example, if Fido is allergic to wheat, substitute flour made from a different grain, such as rice or rye. If he's allergic to eggs, omit them from the recipe.

No-Cook Treats

PUPPY TRAILMIX

Combine 2 Cups dry dog food (and/or cat food), 1 Cup dry non-sugared breakfast cereal  (O's, flakes, puffs, or waffle-shapes), 2 Tablespoons dry grated Parmesan cheese.

Mix together and put into a container with a lid. By the next day, everything in the container will smell and taste like cheese and your dog will enjoy it as training treats.

TEENSIE LIVERWURST SANDWICHES

1. Lightly toast two slices of bread, so they're warm and slightly stiffer than fresh bread but not hard or crunchy.
2. *Very* thinly smear one slice with liverwurst -- you'll only need about one teaspoon, because the warm toast will soften the liverwurst to "almost liquid" and make it easy to apply.
3. Scrape off any excess liverwurst. (You should be able to see the toast through the liverwurst.)
4. Put the other slice of toast on top to make a sandwich, then use a rolling pin to flatten the sandwich as thin as you possibly can (about 1/8th inch).
5. Cut the thinly pressed sandwich into 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch square treat-sized pieces.

(If you don't happen to have any liverwurst on hand, you could substitute peanut butter, soft cheese, chip dip, potted ham, leftover gravy, or other tasty, spreadable foodstuff.)

CHEESE

Most dogs like cheese, and in small quantities cheese is a healthy food (unless your dog is allergic to milk or for some other reason should avoid dairy products.) Pre-slice the cheese into thin slices or narrow sticks that are easy to pull bite-sized pieces off to reward your dog.

String cheese in plastic wrapped sticks makes a handy training treat. For tiny dogs pull threads of cheese  from the side of the stick. Larger dogs can have rewards that suit their size. A good  rule of thumb for sizing your training treat rewards is make them about the same size as the dog's nostril. Of course, you don't put the treat IN the dog's nostril, it's just a useful size comparison for how big the treats should be for individual dogs. (But you knew that.)

DEHYDRATED DOG TREATS

With an inexpensive electric food dehydrator you can make all sorts of dried training treats that dogs. Here are a few ideas to start with: apple slices, carrot slices, bits of leftover pizza, slices of cooked beef, lean pork, chicken, turkey, liver or fish. Cut dried treats into the size pieces you need by using heavy kitchen shears.

When  the treats reach the texture you want, let them cool completely. Then freeze them in plastic containers until you need them. That way they'll stay fresh a long time. You can grab the amount of frozen treats you need for a training session and in a minute or so they're thawed and ready to use.

CRUNCHY BAKED TREATS

In a large mixing bowl combine:
12 Cups whole wheat flour
6 Cups rolled oats (oatmeal)
2 Tablespoons garlic powder
4 Tablespoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon celery seed
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 Cup (finely chopped or grated) carrot or apple or squash or kale

3 Eggs (slightly beaten to mix yolks with whites)
1/3 Cup olive oil (or other vegetable oil)
5 Cups LIQUID (suggestions: chicken or turkey stock, fish stock. Tomato juice, milk)

Mix dry ingredients together, then add vegies, eggs, oil, and liquid. Stir all ingredients together until you can form it  into a ball. (Dough will be stiff and sticky.) Refrigerate AT LEAST one hour (overnight is better).

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Pull off a fist-sized chunk of dough. On a surface “floured” with: 2 Tablespoons whole wheat flour mixed with 1 Tablespoon dry grated parmesan cheese roll dough very thin (about 1/8th to 1/16th of an inch thick) and place on a baking sheet that’s sprayed with cooking-spray. Score with a pizza-cutting wheel into small treat-sized bits.

Bake on center rack 10 to 15 minutes.
Turn over and bake 5 to 10 more minutes, until medium-brown and hard when touched..
(CHECK OCCASIONALLY TO BE SURE IT'S NOT GETTING TOO DARK.)
Turn oven off and leave biscuits in it with oven door shut until cooled.

To use this recipe as hard biscuit snacks, instead of as training treats, roll 1/4-inch thick and cut into shapes with cookie cutters or a pizza-cutting wheel, bake 20 minutes on each side, then turn oven down to 200 degrees for 20 more minutes, then turn oven off and leave in until cooled.

Whether made as thin training wafers or thicker crunchy biscuits, these treats  keep well un-refrigerated.

FREEZING DOUGH. This recipe makes a LOT of treats or biscuits and the dough is easiest and least messy to roll and cut after it’s been frozen then thawed. Bake the amount you need, then freeze the rest of the dough for later use. Divide the dough up into appropriate-sized portions, depending on how many treats or biscuits you want to make at a time. Put dough into plastic bags and freeze. To use, thaw in refrigerator overnight then roll it out, cut, and bake it as above.

VEGAN CRUNCHY BAKED TREATS
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup olive oil
2/3 cup tomato juice
2/3 cup water
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano

Mix it all together and knead with the back of a big spoon until it sticks together in a ball. The dough will be quite sticky.
Refrigerate for about 2 hours (or overnite) and then cut the ball into four pieces.
Roll out each piece on a floured surface to 1/8 inch thick, then lay it on a metal baking sheet and score it into strips or little squares with a pizza-cutting wheel.
Bake about 10 to 15 minutes at 325˚.
Flip the half-cooked dough over and bake about 15 minutes more. (Check every so often to make sure it doesn't get too dark.)
It should be hard to the touch and easy to break cleanly (not bend-able) when it's done.