Design. Create. Decorate.

Design. Create. Decorate.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Healthy Homemade Pet Treats

Welcome back to Quince Cottage!

As you may remember, we wrote a post a while back about dogs and allergies. Yep, both Buster and Daisy are allergic to numerous foods. At least that seems to be the most likely cause for their itchy ears and paws (Daisy is "itchier" than Buster).

Since we can't give our dogs any old dog treats (for instance dog treats made with chicken, beef, pork, wheat, soy, corn, dairy...) we are pretty limited. But we DO love our dogs and want to reward them: for listening, for ignoring other dogs on walks, or just for being cute. Seriously, how could you look at these faces and NOT want to give them something yummy?

Buster © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet
Daisy © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

We had been buying packaged dried sweet potato treats, but at $9 a bag, even when we broke each large piece into several smaller ones, they were pretty expensive. So, we thought why not make our own dried sweet potatoes? After all, here in North Carolina we're in Sweet Potato/Yam Country! There's even an annula Ham and Yam Festival in a nearby town.

We bought a very basic Presto dehydrator at WalMart for about forty bucks. Two large sweet potatoes, sliced thinly, fill up four trays. If you want to try this yourself, briefly blanch the sweet potatoes after slicing to keep them from turning black. Buster and Daisy usually score a few slices of sweet potato that don't even make it to the boiling water. You can also bake the sweet potato slices on a cookie sheet for a long time in a very slow oven, of course. The dehydrator is just more convenient for us.

Dehydrator © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

The treats keep nicely in a baggie and are light weight, making them ideal for taking on walks. You could certainly make meat jerky treats, apple jerky, banana chips etc. for your faithful canine friend. Just be careful not to give them raisins or any other food that can poison a dog.
Here's one of many lists you can find on the interwebs...

Sweet Potato Dog Treats © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Hope yall come back and see us soon! 
We have some yummy recipes up our sleeves (one is a Shrimp & "Faux" Grits)
and we're also in the midst of some 
fabulous DIY projects we'll be sharing in the near future.

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