Treats for Teddy

I made Teddy some dog biscuits a few weeks ago and even though he gobbled up the first few, he got tired of them very quickly.  I found that he had been hoarding all of the biscuits that I had been giving him in his play pen, so he obviously wasn't eating them!  I figured he was sick of them so I gave them out to Teddy's friends (i.e. my friends who have dogs).

At first I figured I would give up on the idea of making homemade treats for Teddy.  If he was going to get tired of them after having only 3 or 4, what was the point of spending 2 hours making them??  It's so easy to buy a package of treats from the store.  But then, at the store, when you read the list of ingredients you remember why you want to make your own - so you can control what goes in them.  Besides, how do we show those that we care about that we love them - with food!

I wanted to make Teddy something that I knew he'd like, and what does every dog like?  People food.

Teddy loves carrots.  Every weekend when I go food shopping I buy a bag of baby carrots, because I'm sure that I'm going to be good and snack on carrots instead of junk food.  Yeah right.  Needless to say, by the end of the week half the bag gets thrown away.  This week though, I decided to add those carrots to a dog biscuit!

Carrot Dog Treats:

• 1 medium banana (ripe)
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1/8 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (plus more for rolling)
• 1 cup rolled oats

Tip: use a food processor to shred your carrots, it will save you A LOT of time and cut fingers (I know from experience).

Preheat your oven to 350.  In the bowl of your mixer mash up the banana (the browner the banana is, the sweeter and softer it will be, so I saved my banana for a few days until it had lots of brown spots) and mix in the shredded carrots.  Add to that the water and applesauce.  Next, add in the flour and oats.  Stir together until it is thoroughly combined.  Knead mixture until a dough forms (it will all clump up on the kneading attachment and scrape the sides of the bowl clean).  Put the dough on a floured surface and roll out to about 1/2 inch thickness.  Using a cute cookie cuter, cut into biscuits.  Place biscuits on a lightly sprayed baking sheet (or just use a sil pad).  The baking time will depend on how hard you want the biscuits.  Teddy likes them a little soft so I baked them for 25 minutes. They'll harden a bit as they cool, but if you want them very hard you'll have to bake longer. 

These were definitely Teddy approved!

 

** If you are going to make your own dog treats, make sure to not add anything that can be dangerous for your dog.  Here is a link to the ASPCA's list of harmful people food for dogs.