My dog is well into his senior years. He can no longer chew hard foods, or enjoy crunchy dog biscuit treats.
I have been using soft store bought treats, but always felt a bit of guilt in the rubber texture and all the fillers.
He is always a good boy, so that means he does get a lot of treats thru the day, so it was time to find a solution I could provide for all this, with the ability to alter ingredients as required.
So far, I am sticking with the basics, but I do not see why you could not add more nutrition to the recipe if the item can survive a short time in the oven.
Lets get started !
Shopping list:
One box of cream of wheat. Nothing special, no flavors, just basic cream of wheat.
One box of powdered milk. I purchased a box that has several individual packets inside, vitamin fortified.
Baby food. At present, i am using a small jar of meaty baby food, chicken, beef, pork, whatever, and one of the larger containers of veggie or fruit baby food. At present, sweet potato and carrot. MAKE SURE YOU PICK PET SAFE VEGGIES AND FRUITS. There are lists of pet safe people foods out there, i suggest you use them.
Put the meat and veggie/ fruit baby food in a bowl.
Add in the dry ingredients. Start out with about 2 tablespoons of each and stir in.
Continue to add the dry ingredients until you get a goopy consistancy that will stick on a fork or spoon. There is not really and exact mix, and it is very difficult to get it wrong. Not IMPOSSIBLE I suppose, as i know there are some people that are highly challenged with cooking, but even at that, you should end up with a usable product :)
spread the mix out on lightly oiled cooking sheet, or lightly oiled aluminum foil as I did here. I tried this with parchment paper, but it was not a success. i wound up with waxy smelling air in my kitchen, and the parchment paper sticking onto the treats !
I found a fork to be the easiest to spread the goop mix around. The goal is about a 1/8 inch thickness. Wetting the fork will help this along.
Place in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for about 12 minutes. If your mix was a bit wet, it could take a bit longer, if it was a bit dry, a bit less. I poke a finger in it to check texture. You are looking for a texture that is like cooked pizza dough, and not a thin crust :)
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a cutting board.
It actually looks like a great pita bread or something like that at this point. If you are tempted, it is safe for you to sample your creation. I so far have resisted doing so LOL.
I have been using a pizza cutter to cut the treats to size, then placing them in a sealed container in the fridge. You could have fun with it and use small cookie cutters too !
They should keep up to a month, but so far they have not lasted that long !
Bon Appetite !
If your dog or cat has an allergy to any of the ingredients used in this recipe, do not use it. These are also to be used as treats, not a staple diet.