We have been making home-made treats.  Here’s a page with some great recipes.

http://www.dogaware.com/diet/treats.html

The tuna treats are particularly easy and make a nice moderately high value treat.

This applies to raw and commercial diets:

http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter/protein-and-variety-in-the-diet/

(image from the iheartguts.com website. check out their cute products! )

Use this for a high-value training treat.  All the dogs go CRAZY for it.

Ingredients:

- Whole liver (beef or ostrich)
- Garlic powder
- Star anise (or anise in any form should work) [this is the secret ingredient]

Cut the liver into several big chunks.

Use a big pot because the liver is usually very large.  Add enough water to cover the liver by at least an inch, and bring it to a boil.

Add the liver chunks with lots of garlic powder and couple pieces of star anise.  Cover and boil for about 30 minutes, turning the liver a couple times so it is cooked through.   Be careful not to boil too long otherwise the liver will become waterlogged and falls apart.  Remove it from the water when done.  [I scoop out the bits floating on the top and save it to mix in the dog's food for an extra treat]

Let it cool slightly, then cut the liver into thinner slices and put it on a cookie sheet. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for at least an hour or until the treat is the consistency you prefer.  My preferred consistency is when it is firm but still breakable by hand.  If it is too hard/dry then you will need to cut it into smaller pieces using a knife.

Once it’s done, turn the oven off and let the treats cool in the oven for at least a couple hours.   The finished product for me is usually 1/3″ thick slices of liver about 3″ x 4″ in size.   This gives the dog something larger that they see (and covet) when training, but when you reward you just break off little pieces at a time.

Be sure to freeze the treats you aren’t immediately going to use so they don’t get moldy.

I’ve been feeding my dogs a raw diet for about 9 years now, and only in the last 3-4 years have adjusted my ratios to the prey model raw diet (80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ meat).   This is an easy guideline to follow, and is more appropriate to what wolves eat in the wild.   Supplements are generally not necessary, though I have always fed egg a couple times a week, some yogurt daily, veggies a few times a week.  I feed ground meat for many of the meat meals, mostly so I can mix in the supplements, though it’s more appropriate to feed big chunks of meat.

Well– I still have “Six” (Ms. Green) here for a time, and she seems to be trying to  get me to feed her the “Real” raw diet.  She refuses all ground meat and most supplements.  But hand her a whole steak, pork loin, chicken breast, duck neck, or chicken back and she’s all over it.  “Organ meat blend?  Forget it.  Give me a whole chicken liver, gizzard, or decent-sized piece of beef liver.”  Any supplements I give her like a salmon oil capsule needs to be stuffed in the middle of a turkey heart, which she devours with gusto.

I guess I’m being trained here!  This little girl says she is no urban carnivore.  Good dog!

Poor Lola– she fractured her upper molar very badly last week on a marrow bone that I had given the dogs for a treat, and we ended up taking her to the Animal Dental Clinic in San Carlos for a (very expensive) tooth extraction. The tooth was too damaged to save via root canal. They did a good job with the extraction, though.

Some people might be a bit squeamish about seeing a picture of the broken tooth, but here’s a link to it for those interested in seeing more.

Lesson learned: beef marrow/knuckle bones are harder than teeth for good reason. They are weight-bearing bones that support a very large animal. If you want to give marrow bones for recreation, then monitor it carefully and take away the bone after the dog has finished licking the marrow out of the ends. After that, many dogs will start chewing the bone in an attempt to get more marrow out of the middle and that is bad news for teeth.

I’ve been feeding my dogs a home-prepared raw diet for years, and they thrive on it. It’s not that much more expensive than feeding good kibble, and the health benefits are tremendous.

This article floated around cyberspace today, and it’s worth reading:

Real food for dogs is easier than you think

- By Christie Keith, Special to SF Gate; Wednesday, February 7, 2007