Dog Treats!

-Originally posted on August 9th on my Facebook Page-

 

After seeing a project on Pinterest I decided to try and make my own. Since I didn't look at or even read the project directions I looked at the pictures at like noon. Went home and realized all of my banana's were pretty much dead and got annoyed with myself for always buying banana's and never eating them all... So in my grumbling to myself I realized that I could make the dog treats I saw on Pinterest! Great but we don't have any yogurt. So I give up. I am not a very motivated person. About 10 minutes later I look in the fridge for a snack and see a whole case of low fat yogurt. Thanks Coleby for being such a yogurt eater! I debate on the healthiness of this yogurt for dogs and decide since it is Low Fat that it can't have too much sugar or bad things.


At this point I decide to throw all of the banana's, a couple things of yogurt and a huge scoop full of peanut butter into a bowl. I think I remembered seeing something about peanut butter and maybe something else? I was feeling experimental. It was great! Then I get my smasher thingy out that I use once every 5 years. I think it is for potatoes? Maybe. And after one smash I realize this is futile. I debate getting the blender out. It was an argument with myself over which would allow me to be lazier. Option one: smashing this bowl until it is in a mushy moldable form. Option 2: cleaning a blender. I decided that physical labor is to exhausting so I went with the blender. I could always leave it in the sink and ask Coleby to clean it out tomorrow while I am at work... haha. I love our blender it is great. I dumped the mushy bowl into the blender and after just a tiny bit of prodding it starts mixing into a wonderfully smooth smoothy looking mix. It seriously looked good, but I knew it was a gross mix and I reminded myself of that. (Maybe I could make human smoothies similar to this!?!?). At this point I have a huge thing full of smoothy dog treat mix. In the picture it shows the people using an Ice Cube tray. And as we somewhat cleaned up last week I found the 3 ice cube trays in a cabinet that we haven't used since we bought our new fridge 2 1/2 years ago. Because I am not one for wasting cabinet space I threw them away. 2 1/2 years of not using them.... and I throw them away and 5 days later I need them. Seriously this is my luck.

So I do the next best thing. I decide to get out my mini muffin pan. But, the only issue is getting them out and having them not stick and go in a million pieces and fall apart when they are frozen. Frustrated I turn to what I usually would... spray Pam. Probably not the healthiest thing for a dog but I did not want to have to dig all these little tiny pieces and have to clean up and make a mess. So i put a supper thin layer of Pam cooking spray on the bottom and went to pouring. I had enough to fill my entire pan and so I threw out some old eggs and lined a cardboard egg box with tin foil (We didn't have saran wrap, only press and seal) and poured the rest of the mix in there.

After about 4 hours of waiting they were frozen enough to give the dogs. They gobbled them up! I put Keegans medicine in about half of them (he has seizures, very sad!) and left the other half just regular. When I first handed them over to the dogs they sniffed them but Toby's was gone in one bite and Keegan went over to the rug to finish his. It was a great way to give Keegan his medicine and make them both happy. We usually give him his medicine with a treat but sometimes he separates them and spits the pill back out. And I really hate giving Keegan something and not giving Toby something. He just looks at you like "What about me?!?". Overall this project turned out great. The dogs love them and now we have treats for the next few weeks.

In the end I used: Two Yoplait cups of Yogurt, Probably about a cup of Peanut Butter and 5 bananas. I think if I were to do it again I would add a little bit of flower to thicken it up a little.

It wasn't anything overly scientific or fancy, just the way I like it. :-) (Oh, and I did clean up my mess and clean out the blender!)

All the ingredients.

 

Before the freezer.

My mess...

In the freezer. You can see the pills I stuck in on Keegans side of the pan. I stuck them in so that I could see them a little bit. I am always worried I might accidentally give Toby the medicine.

 All Done!

 Keegan enjoying his treat!

 Toby says "I am done already, you took too long to take the picture. But I will lick my lips"

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________

Update from 09/11/12

I have made two more batches of these awesome dog treats. I am starting to figure out exactly how they should work. One thing I need if I am going to keep doing this is a silicone mini muffin pan. My pan is getting all scratched up from trying to get these treats out. I think the silicone would make it easy because they you could just pop them out. I am not sure if an ice cube tray would be functional. I do need to figure out a way to thicken this up as well. This last batch I made was pretty much the consistency of water by the time my blender was done.

 

Last two times I used:

2 Banana's

Half of a huge tub of plain yogurt

1 1/2 cup Peanut Butter

 

It made two full trays of Mini-Muffin sized dog treats each time. Not a lot of ingredients but a lot of treats. Also I threw one into the neighbors yard for their dog and he loved it. Great way to give the dogs their medicine and to use leftover banana's.