something for them
Recipe: peanut butter dog treats
I’m sorry, were you expecting something to eat? Errr, it’s not terribly tasty but… my best girl loves them. I’ll be honest though, she loves anything. She’ll eat rocks and sticks if you let her. I don’t let her.
Kaweah, has made a few guest appearances on this blog in the past. She’s my furry and somewhat faithful companion. Her faithfulness increases with the amount of food I am preparing. There are two behaviors she exhibits that amaze me (there are a lot of behaviors that make me nuts). Normally, she won’t let us pet her unless she’s lying on the bed with us. She’ll even duck away when you try to pet her – unless there is food – see a pattern? But the couple of times I have received devastating news, she was there and she knew. She leaned against me and let me cry into her scruff. Best.Dog.Ever.
The other behavior is *knowing* when I’m baking something for her to eat. Like I said over Thanksgiving, I bake and cook all the time while she snores her brains out nearby. As soon as I make anything intended for the dog, she’s right there – like Chucky from those horror movies.
I found this recipe on this website with a nice selection of dog treat recipes. It’s not as hard or brittle as I was hoping. Maybe I just need to bake them longer. They taste dull and flavorless, but we all know labs could care less about taste – the act of scarfing down food is their raison d’être!
a simple dough
Over 20 years ago, I bought a collection of random cookie cutter shapes and made sugar cookies TWICE. I never threw them out despite the several times we’ve moved around the country. Good thing too, because what dog wants to eat dog biscuits that aren’t in the shape of their favorite critters? Actually, she doesn’t care about that either, but she humors us.
kitty cats and squirrels
ready to bake
Since the dog isn’t really a connoisseur of biscuit texture, I used all of the cuttings and re-rolled to cut out more shapes and eventually used the remainder to roll out strips of biscuit. They baked up just fine, but were a sort of soft cookie instead of a snappy one. Next time I will bake them longer to let them crisp up and dry out more. We got 3-4 dozen out of this recipe.
a bowl of doggy joy
had to shoot the pic quickly before the fountain of drool turned on
Peanut Butter (Dog) Treats
[print recipe]
2 tbsps corn oil
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup water
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups white flour
Preheat oven to 350Β°F. Combine oil, peanut butter, and water. Add flour 1 cup at a time, then knead into firm dough. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with small bone shaped cookie cutter (I used squirrel and kitty shaped). Bake at 350Β°F for 20 minutes. Makes 2 1/2 dozen.
November 28th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Oh my goodness what a doll! I have a similar looking dog – lab dobie mix, with the long eyelashes and black fur, but she’d never sit still like that! My other dog does the ducking thing, and they do seem to know when something is for them!
November 28th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
As someone who makes her doggie weekly treats I can tell you to bake the cookies for 20 minutes(before you go to bed) and then leave them in the oven over night.
Your dog is so gorgeous!
November 28th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Oh my your dog is SO adorable! And so cute with the treat on his nose! I can’t wait to have a dog again and then I bake him/her treats too. :D
November 28th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
hi! .. i’ve made similar looking treats as well for my golden retriever and was hoping they would be less bready and more crispy like the commercial treats. mental note taken of peabody’s tip ( :
November 29th, 2007 at 7:44 am
That is the cutiest dog treat shapes I’ve ever seen. Will be making it for my parents dogs for the holidays…now if I can just find cutters like that!
November 29th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Those cookies look great! I love that cute picture of your Labrador! Really adorable…
Cheers,
Rosa
November 29th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Leave it to you Jen to make such artful homemade doggy treats. Who knew they could be so nice. I think I’ll try making these for our neighbor’s dog, who’s always so sweet to us. Thanks for this recipe!
November 29th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I agree with holybasil – I’ll have to make these for my neighbor’s 3 “hooligans” for the holidays! Those 3 are my protectors – they bark at everyone who isn’t where they think that I want them. Poor JD can’t even get the eggs from the hen house without being barked at. :)
November 29th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Very cute! The cookies and the dog!!!
November 29th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Oh, what a sweet dog! My dog would never, ever be that obedient… But I’m sure she would love to have these tasty treats too. Thanks for the recipe. :)
November 29th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Alice – she learned to hold the treat on her nose very young. Catching the treat took a little longer. At one point when she was maybe 5 years old, she just pointed her schnoz down to the ground and ate the treat off the floor!! ha ha!
Peabody – you rock, lady! Thanks for the tip and my dog thanks you too :)
Ashley – yup, I think the unconditional love (not counting the bribing with treats) is amazing coming from a dog. I hope you get one soon!
tian – totally, I am going to try her tip too.
Carla – pretty much at any random cooking store or maybe even Michael’s.
Rosa – thanks :)
HB – dog treats will win you lots of puppy friends. Then you’ll have canine as well as human fans of your cooking!
Liz – One day I’m going to visit you and bake you a cake with all of those fresh eggs you guys have :)
Nora – thank you!
Hannah – you’re so welcome. It’s the least we can do for all of that unconditional love we get from the pups, right? :)
November 30th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Kitty cats and squirrels? I’m so in love with them. And your dog, too.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I LOVE the picture of your dog…gorgeous! I will have to try making some for my sisters dog (I have a cat).
December 1st, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I’m in love with my doggie too and yours is so cute! She’s such a good girl to sit there like that with a treat on her nose!
December 1st, 2007 at 8:40 pm
sher – that’s so sweet of you!
sarah – thanks! sorry about the delay, you were accidentally placed in my SPAM filter, but I fished you out :)
Sabra – dogs are such great companions, no?
December 4th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Having an older dog with teeth issues I am loving this recipe! Every treat I have made for him so far had to be given to the neighbor’s dog and mine is starting to give me the evil eye!! Thanks for this!
December 8th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Awww! I hope your pup enjoys the yummies. Every dog deserves a treat (or two or three!).
April 4th, 2008 at 5:16 am
He is a very cute fellow! Your blog is full of wonderful information. Thanks for the link!
April 7th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Chris – thank you :)
April 21st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Oh my gosh, your dog is such a googly-eyed angel! And I totally understand the inevitable puddle of drool syndrome, as I’m sure any Lab lover would. :)
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Penny – you nailed it on the head… drool central :)
September 17th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
[…] celebrate, I baked them a big batch of peanut butter biscuits, in bone shapes. I based it on the recipe here, with a few changes: I made my own peanut butter out of peanuts and olive oil in the food […]
October 20th, 2009 at 8:41 am
First of all.. that picture is priceless.
I have so many clients that have been looking for a really good at home recipe. I made these for my own pack over the weekend and I must say they were snarffed up immediately.
Great post. I will be sending this to people I know.