Authors: Paris Permenter,John Bigley
The Healthy Hound Cookbook: Over 125 Easy Recipes for Healthy, Homemade Dog Food--Including Grain-Free, Paleo, and Raw Recipes! (10 page)
In the last few years, numerous dog deaths and illnesses have been attributed to tainted jerky chews made with ingredients from China. There’s absolutely no need to put your dog’s health or your own peace of mind at risk, though, because it’s super easy to make your own healthy jerky and chews for your dog. You’ll know just how the chews were prepared, and you’ll know they were created with human-grade ingredients.
Homemade jerky chews also have the advantage of letting you customize the thickness and chewiness of the chew based on your own dog. If you have a senior who is missing some teeth, create a softer chew. If you’re sharing your home with a young chewing machine, create a tougher chew. Even better—you can make them all for a fraction of the price you’d pay for chews in the store.
Skirt steak (often used for making fajitas) is an inexpensive choice for this tasty treat. While its toughness requires marinating for fajitas, that same toughness makes this cut a great choice for a chew.
YIELDS: 10–20 treats,
1
⁄
2
" × 6"
1 pound skirt steak
- Preheat oven to 300°F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Slice beef into narrow strips no wider than
1
⁄
2
". Place strips on the cookie sheet, but do not allow strips to touch. - Bake for 1 hour, then lower oven temperature to 200°F. Open oven door slightly so moisture will escape the oven. Continue to bake the strips for 2 hours.
- Remove strips from oven and place on a wire drying rack until completely cooled.
- Refrigerate portions. Store for up to 3 days in the refrigerator or freeze up to 6 months.
It’s easy to have healthy treats on hand when you cook a large quantity and store them in your freezer—but for how long? According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, freezing at 0°F keeps food safe indefinitely but the quality of the food may change after a certain period. Food stored for long periods will remain safe, but if you’re sharing it with your dog, you may notice a change in texture or flavor after a 4- to 6-month period for most foods. Regardless of freezer time, it’s always important to use airtight storage to avoid freezer burn.
Stuffed celery stalks provide a healthy chew for dogs to enjoy without the calories of rawhides and other chew sticks.
YIELDS: 10–15 treats
8 ounces cream cheese
1
⁄
2
pound chicken liver, rinsed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 head celery
- Remove cream cheese from refrigerator and let it soften while preparing liver.
- In a medium skillet, fry liver in olive oil until liver is no longer pink. Remove from heat and use a fork to break up the liver as much as possible.
- In a mixing bowl, use a fork or hand mixer to combine cream cheese and chicken liver. Mix until no large pieces of liver are visible.
- Wash celery and trim ends. Fill with cream cheese–liver mixture, either with a fork or by piping it using a plastic bag with the corner snipped off. Each treat is one stalk of celery (no need to trim off leaves). Refrigerate up to 3 days.
If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can make these in the oven on its lowest temperature setting, baking on a lightly greased cookie sheet, and flipping the chicken livers after about 2 hours.
YIELDS: 20–30 treats
1 pound chicken liver, rinsed
- Spray the dehydrator trays with nonstick spray.
- If any livers are too thick, use a fork to flatten them slightly.
- Lay out livers on dehydrator trays, leaving space between them so there will be good air circulation throughout the trays.
- Allow livers to dehydrate, check drying level periodically.
- When livers are noticeably dryer, swap position of drying trays and allow to further dehydrate, roughly 4 hours. (Drying times will vary with model of dehydrator.)
- Once done, allow the chicken livers to cool, then store them in the refrigerator for up to 1 week (although they didn’t last anywhere near that long here … our dogs loved them!) or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
Dehydrated sweet potatoes make a healthy and tasty chew that’s a safe substitute for rawhide. If you don’t have a food dehydrator, these dehydrated treats can also be prepared in the oven at 250°F for 3 hours.
YIELDS: 18–25 chews,
1
⁄
4
" × 3"
2 medium sweet potatoes
- Wash and peel the sweet potatoes, being careful to remove any sprouts or green spots.
- Slice the potatoes lengthwise no thinner than
1
⁄
4
" thickness. Slightly thicker slices will be chewier for your dog (although they won’t dry out as well and will have a shorter shelf life, even in the refrigerator). - Arrange the slices on the dehydrating trays. Don’t allow the slices to touch one another or the edges won’t dry properly.
- Dry the potatoes for about 14 hours (although this will vary by dehydrator).
- Cool and refrigerate. Refrigerate up to 1 week or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
The green parts of sprouted potatoes contain solanine, a glycoalkaloid poison. It’s toxic not only to dogs but also to people (although poisoning is rare because of the bitter taste). Avoiding it is simple, though; just discard any green or sprouted part of the potato!
