Dog Dental Chews

Have you looked at the ingredient list on Greenies? Ew. Here is an inexpensive way to make dental chews for you dog that they will love. Also, the gelatin is great for joint and hip care so you don't have to waste your money on poor quality pet supplements. These will keep for a week or two in the fridge so if you have only one small dog, you might want to half the recipe. If you have a Great Dane, double or triple the recipe and get really large molds.

I use Great Lakes gelatin that I buy on amazon. This is the recipe i use to make broth: http://balancedbites.com/2011/04/easy-recipe-mineral-rich-bone-broth.html. If you want to make a batch specifically for pets, leave out the garlic. When I'm done making broth, I separate the bones from the garlic. I grind the bones that are falling apart or break easily and I save the ones that are still hard and reuse them in another batch of broth. I use a meat grinder attachment for the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer to grind the bones. If you're not using the ground bones right away, you can freeze them. I separate some of the bones into half cup portions so I don't have to thaw the whole batch to make these.

1 cup broth
4 Tbsp Gelatin
2 Tbsp dried mint
1/2 cup ground bones (optional)

Heat broth in sauce pan on low to medium heat. Add gelatin and stir in until completely dissolved. When it starts to boil, turn flame down to low. Stir in the mint and let it steep for about 5-10 minutes, then add ground bone and mix completely. Continue to simmer on low for 15-30 minutes or more, depending on how gummy or how hard you want the chew to be.

Pour into silicon ice cube trays and chill. Keep refrigerated.

Baked Dog Cookies (Good for Cats Too)

This treat recipe is a little more involved than my other treat recipe, but probably better. The dehydrated cookies are very dry and hard for little Halle to swallow. These have a moist texture and are freezable so you can make a whole big batch and freeze what you don't use right away. 

3 cups ground bones
2 eggs
1 15 oz can pumpkin
1/4 cup sun butter (or any other nut butter)

Step one:
Make yourself some broth from bones. Any animal will do. I save bones from almost everything I eat in a bag in the freezer and when I have about 2 lbs, I make broth.

Step two:
Grind bones. I use a meat grinder attachment on my Kitchenaid stand mixer. For big bones, I'll use them for broth 2 or 3 times so that they're soft enough to put through the grinder.

Step three:
Make cookies! Preheat oven to 350. Beat egg. Add all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl and blend thoroughly. Line baking sheets with parchment and scoop cookies into the size you want. Press them into flat cookies. Bake for about 45 minutes or until edges start to brown. Let cool before serving.

Keep in mind the size of your dog when making these cookies. I use a small ice cream scoop that makes the cookies about 1 1/4" diameter. I give Jack (65 lbs) and Hazel (50 lbs) each one whole cookie and break one in half to give to Halle (17 lbs).

Boiled Bone Dog (or Cat) Treats

Halle

Step One: Make bone broth. I use the Balanced Bites recipe. It's simple and easy. Do not use onions to make your broth if you plan on feeding these treats to dogs. I'm not sure about cats, but I've heard that onions aren't good for dogs. The bones must be soft enough to grind, so if you're using bones from large animals (cows, bison, lamb, etc) make sure they have been boiled for a long time. You don't want to break your meat grinder!

Step Two: When you strain your bone broth, try to separate as much of the garlic from the bones as possible. You could omit the garlic to make this easier, but then your broth won't taste as good. The only vegetable I use to make broth is garlic. If you use carrots to make broth and they turn to mush and you can't separate them from the bones, it's ok. Garlic might not be good for dogs, but carrots are fine.

Step Three: Grind bones in a meat grinder. I use the meat grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer and it works fine. The bones are pretty mushy after boiling for 24 hours. Since I have a small dog, I use the coarse grind first and then run it through a second time with the fine grind. I've never tried a food processor for this.

Step Four: Line food dehydrator trays with parchment. Scoop pureed bone mush into desired size and shape. I like 1/8 cup for my 50 lbs pitbull and 60 lbs lab mix and 1 tsp - 1/2 a Tbsp for my 17 lbs pug. For fun, you can use cookie cutters to shape the treats. 

Step Five - Dry on 155 degrees for 12-24 hours depending on climate. I live in a vast desert wasteland so it doesn't take long for me.

Hazel and Jack

Step Six - make your pet happy.