What do Sacramento dog owners most prefer to feed their dogs as a treat or snack: rawhide, dehydrated sweet potato, a commercial smoked bone, or home-made dog biscuits made from pea or garbanzo bean flour? Instead of rawhide treats or sharp bones to keep your dog busy, give your dog a treat this holiday season of sliced circles of dehydrated sweet potato. You can dehydrate the slices of sweet potato yourself in a warm oven for a few hours, a solar dehydrator, or any type of dehydrating stove just like you dehydrate other vegetables.
Dogs like sweet potatoes in moderation. And there are lots of carotenoids in the sweet potato. Dehydrate sweet potatoes so that they are chewy and flexible. The key word here for your dog's health and safety is flexible. Or you can buy already made chewy, flexible sliced sweet potato chews. One product you can try is called Healthy Snax® Sweet Potato Dog Treats.
If you'd like to buy ready-made dehydrated sweet potatoes for dogs, check out the Doctors Foster and Smith website, where you can buy this treat ready-made in jars. Find out for yourself why dried sweet potatoes as chews for dogs are a most popular dog treats. Dehydrated sweet potatoes have a taste that is simply irresistible to dogs. And they contain no animal fat and are not greasy to the touch. That's why sweet potatoes are popular with pet owners. These meat-free dog treats are a satisfying alternative to rawhide or meaty treats.
Sweet potatoes are known for healthy beta-carotene and can be broken down in some dogs more easily than rawhide. These delicious, healthy dog treats are sized perfectly for medium to large dogs, but you can easily break them apart into smaller portions for small dogs. Also, you don't want to feed your dog any dehydrated hides that might get stuck in the dog's stomach or become an obstacle in the dog's intestines.
Dehydrated processing seals in maximum flavor and nutrition. You can make your own or buy a dehydrated sweet potato product for dogs such as Snax®. The product is approximately 4-1/2".
Or you can make sweet potato fried and dehydrated using high omega-3 oils. If you buy the product already made called Fries, this product is perfectly sized for any dog. The product is approximately 3/8" thick strips vary in length. Or you can buy dehydrated sweet potato rings. The rings, if you buy them already made, measure approximately 1/4" thick x 2-1/2" diameter. Another design is to make disk-shaped dried sweet potatoes. The product called Disks measure approximately 1/4" thick x 1-1/4" diameter. These dog treats are sold by weight; individual size and number per jar varies.
If you buy the ready made product, the ingredients are: Sweet Potato, Glucose, Citric Acid (a preservative), Sodium Metabisulfite (a preservative). Suggested daily serving for dogs: Feed one piece a few times daily as a treat. As with any treat, always offer fresh water after feeding.
If you make your own dried sweet potato treats for dogs, just leave out the preservatives. Dehydrate the sweet potato slices, rings, circles, or other shapes. You can even use a sharp cookie cutter to cut the sweet potatoes in animal shapes. All you need to do to make your own is simply dry out at low heat in your oven thin slices of sweet potato and offer them to your dog as a dehydrated treat instead of the usual rawhide chews for dogs that you find in supermarkets.
Make sure if you're feeding your dog any chews on the upcoming holidays, to provide water as dehydrated foods dry out the dog's mouth from chewing. The basic idea is to give your dog a healthy snack. Dog's don't have the type of digestive systems to handle grain-based treats.
They can eat dried sweet potato, dried carrots, and dried blueberries. For this holiday season, make some dehydrated snacks for your dog that aren't full of grain, fat, or gluten. Keep those poultry bones away from your dog. Cooked bones can kill a dog because they splinter off sharp shards as they are chewed. Try a sweet potato snack instead for your dog to chew. And dehydrated sweet potatoes gives the dog's gums and teeth a chewy workout without splintering or clogging the dog's digestive tract.
If you buy the ready-made product, here's the analysis of what's in it, according to the product's website.
Guaranteed Analysis:Crude Protein2.5% min.Crude Fat0.3% min.Crude Fiber3.0% max.Moisture25.0% max.
Keep out of reach of children and pets to prevent unwanted consumption.
How to make your own gluten-free dog biscuits as holiday treats
Here's how to bake from scratch your own healthier beef liver and flour or meal dog biscuits (without sugar or salt) that even may help to clean your dog's teeth when the sponge-like cakes get slightly stale overnight in the refrigerator and just a bit hardened.
Keep your dog's diet low in grains or grain-free as much as possible. Use sweet potato flour mixed with eggs and pureed liver or baby food (turkey, lamb, veal, or chicken).
This recipe gives you a fresh cake with a sponge-like texture for dogs. The cake is made of liver and whole grain flour or meal and eggs, and has no sugar, salt, or other seasonings.
If you mix just flour, pureed liver, and water and bake as a cracker, without the eggs, you'll get a cracker texture. Don't use chicken livers. Use beef livers.
You can add an optional 1/4 teaspoon of cod liver oil and/or 1/4 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil to the batter, if desired, whether or not you use the recipe version with or without eggs. The eggs give the dog treat a sponge-cake texture. Without the eggs, you basically get a brittle cracker texture that easily breaks into crumbs.
Ingredients
* 1/2 cup sweet potato flour, buckwheat flour, or garbanzo bean flour. (Some dogs are allergic to wheat flour.)
* 2 eggs
* 1 1/2 pounds beef liver, cut into pieces or two jars of human baby food (turkey, lamb, veal, or chicken).
Variations: Add two tablespoons of wheat germ or rice bran to the sweet potato flour or garbanzo flour mix. Optional: Add 1/4 teaspoon of cod liver oil and/or 1/4 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil to the batter. Some health food stores carry pea flour, but generally sweet potato flour will keep your dog on a grain-free diet as much as possible.
If your dog is diabetic or overweight, ask your veterinarian whether the oil should be added to the treat. Otherwise, the dog will get the required fats from the beef liver. You can substitute two jars of human baby food (meat only) instead of beef liver.
If your dog is not diabetic, you could add 1/4 cup of pureed carrots or blueberries to the batter. Dogs can't digest vegetables that aren't pureed. Never feed grapes to your dog as it's toxic to dogs.
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 10x15 inch shallow pan with parchment paper.
2. Place the liver into your blender or food processor. Pulse until finely chopped. Slowly spoon in the flour and eggs, stir out the lumps, and process until you see a smooth liver and grain paste. Or put the pureed liver into a bowl and slowly add the flour and eggs. Stir the batter gently. Spread evenly in the pan that you first have lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. If it's not done, bake until the center is firm when you stick a fork in it. Cool, and cut into squares. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed jar. The treats will have a consistency similar to a sponge cake.
There's even dog biscuit mix for those that don't want to make dog biscuits or treats from scratch. Or if you're making your own dog treats, you have a choice of flour. Try to avoid wheat flours to which so many dogs are allergic. Instead use buckwheat flour. Buckwheat is not wheat.
Or use oats or sweet potato flour. Look at various potato flours in your health food store. Dogs shouldn't be on a high grain-based diet. Minimize the grains in your dog treats and maximize the meat and eggs along with vegetables such as pureed carrots and peas.
See the video on how to make your own dog biscuits. Also check out the site (Green-HouseTV) mentioned in the video to see more recipes on how to make your own dog biscuits and treats. The recipe in the video uses peanut butter. If you do decide to use a tiny amount of peanut butter in a dog treat, don't use the type that contains trans-fats such as hydrogenated oils. Instead use organic roasted peanut butter that has no other added fats in it, or puree your own roasted peanuts in a blender.
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