Fuel For the Fire: My Attempt at Creating a Homemade Training Treat.

Lately I have increased my focus on dog training. I dream of happy obedient dogs that no longer scream at bikes or traffic, cease to choke themselves on walks, and who I can take to events and public places with relative ease. Maybe even a Miniature Pincher who doesn't feel the need to take on Great Danes. To get to that point I've been exercising my clicker finger and going through large amounts of dog treats.

Because these treats could add up to a significant amount of the dog's daily diet, I wanted to be careful what I was giving them. I wanted the good nutrition and digestive stability of the quality kibble I was giving them and I didn't want to create three waddling little pig dogs. High quality treats can also be expensive. On a whim I decided “hey I'm a good cook. Why can't I make my own dog treats?”

I began an internet search for homemade training treats. The majority of my finds were for hard cookie or biscuit style treats. These may be simple and have a long shelf life, but when doing quick repetitive training I did not want to stop for my little dogs to crunch, sniff, and lick up every crumb. Another common treat I was finding was dehydrated diced up beef liver. I'm sure this is stinky and delicious, but using too much liver can be dangerous because of its high levels of fat soluble vitamins that can cause toxicity in your pets.

In the end I decided “Why can't I just throw a bunch of healthy tasty ingredients in my food processor and make my own recipe? What could go wrong?”

I made a little list of healthy things my dogs enjoy in their mouth and the end result was...

Doggie Wheaties! Or maybe Pup Flakes? Canine Crumbles? Brown Bait? A giant mess that tastes pretty good? This is fun! Maybe I need to have a naming contest.

Ingredients

1.25 lbs chicken liver (I got the little white Tyson tub)

31 oz (2 cans) unseasoned pinto beans

3 ½ cups (about 2 large) yams

1 ¾ cups (8 small) apples

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 large eggs

I'd eat that.

It cost me about $10 for the entire list, but I was left with most of a bag of apples, 10 eggs, and the majority of a bag of flour for my own consumption or future batches of... Num Num Nips?

Instructions

I started by boiling the livers in a pot of water until no longer pink. I do not recommend getting distracted taking pictures of your pretty ingredients letting brown liver water boil over onto your burner. I poured the livers into a strainer and set aside. A few of mine had little green bulges. This is a gall bladder and it is not tasty. Cut those off if you see any.

While the liver was boiling I rinsed and scrubbed my yams and put them in the microwave on high for 20 minutes. Make sure they are on a plate because they get sticky and syrupy when cooked through.

I cored my apples, but left on all the skin. I then pureed them in my food processor until they resembled applesauce. 

Because I planned to dry the final mix I didn't need all the juice present in the fresh apples so I squeezed out about a pint of tasty tasty apple juice which I drank while finishing my baking.

Mmmmm. Juice!

If you have cheesecloth this would probably work even better. The pulp left over from your juicer could work great. I was left with about 1 ¾ cups of apple pulp.

Cut them up first. I had to stir these a few times in the processor.

By this time my yams were cooked so I stuck them in the processor and blended them just like the apples.

I drained and rinsed my beans and then pureed them with the chicken livers.

Pâté anyone?

I added 2 eggs to the wet ingredients and then blended in my cup of flour.

I took half of my dog dough and spread it about ½ an inch thick over parchment paper placed on a cookie sheet. The other half I put in the fridge. I preheated the oven at 350 like I had seen for drying liver treats.

After about an hour I had hard browned edges and a sticky wet center. The oven bake method was turning into a bit of a mess. 

Delicious?

It the end after going through way too much trouble, getting way too sticky, and getting very frustrated I ended up with edible dog crumbles.



My taste tester. Do not trust your dog to nicely lick your utensils. This turned into a game of spatula tug.

Possible Problems with the Oven method:

1. the oven was too high
2. the dough was spread to thickly
3. I am very very impatient
   

If you to not have a food dehydrator I still believe the oven method could work. You'll just have to be smarter about it than I was.
The second half I took out of the fridge and spread on to dehydrator trays. The first tray was spread onto a special fruit roll up tray and the second I spread on parchment paper cut to line the tray. 

Start

I set the dehydrator to 135º because that was the recommended temp for jerky and I used raw egg. I left them in for 6 hrs and they came out crispy and dry. For a softer treat I would recommend checking after 4 to 5 hours.

Crispy finish

I took the sheets in my hands and crumbled them into little bite sized pieces that resembles bran flakes. The mix has a pleasant wheaty smell and didn't taste too bad either! In the end I had about a gallon bag full of healthy densely packed treats.

I attempted to calculate the calories per treat, but it was difficult to guess the actual serving size. The entire mix came out to about 2884 calories, but should actually be less because I don't know the calorie content for apples with most of the juice removed. To give a general idea half the dough spread to about 12 in by 18 in. That's 216 in². Multiply that by 2 to get the batch total of 432. A good treat size would be ½ in². So divide 2884 by 864 and you get about 3 calories per treat. I have read that a good treat only needs to be the size of a little pink eraser head or a pea, so you could probably half that calorie amount.

 
Something smells good up there!

This is an easy recipe to play around with if you want to try different combos or use ingredients on hand. I think unflavored pumpkin or carrots would mix well. If you have concerns about wheat ingredients I think the flour could be left out with out negative consequences. I also saw mixes that added garlic to make the treats extra scent appealing and tasty.

These treats should freeze well and have currently stayed fresh and mold free in an airtight container in my pantry for 2 weeks now.

Now I just have to keep clicking my dogs into good citizens.