Best Dog Treats Ever – Asparagus Jerky!

Posted on by vpdairies

Hey Peg!

I just made the cheapest, tasty dog treats ever. Rufus loves them and they are made from scraps!

You know how crazy I am about pet food. It has to nutritious, tasty and, for Mom, cheap. Well, I found it. Asparagus Jerky! Let me ‘splain.

Remember how Pete’s cancer at 5 and death at 10 put me on a mission to keep Poncho healthy? I spent 2 years making his food from venison, brown rice and asparagus or broccoli.  I found that Poncho loved, loved, loved asparagus. He only “liked” broccoli. Anyway, it was a lot of work and it was hard to make sure that I had time. I stopped doing it, but I never stopped 1 thing. I still saved the stem ends of the asparagus to treat him when I was cooking. Don’t know if it made a difference, cancer got him too. But, he stayed with me for almost 17 years.

The other day, I was making dinner, breaking off the ends of the asparagus, and setting them aside for Rufus. I don’t like to give him more than 1 or 2 as treats per day (who wants to risk the “runs”?), so there are always more ends than he needs. Then it struck me; why not make jerky?! Why not cut them into smaller pieces and dry them in the NuWave oven. I even used the whitish, really tough stalks ends. No oil or flavorings. He loves them!

Now instead of him getting into the garbage, I’m feeding him the garbage and he thinks it’s great!

Here’s how I made Asparagus Jerky:

I put some parchment paper on the grill of the NuWave. I didn’t use any oil or spray because I wasn’t planning on adding any flavor later.

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I broke off the ends to the asparagus we’d had for dinner and cut the pieces down to about 1 inch.

I set the NuWave to 175 degrees. Since I know you don’t have a NuWave, use the same temperature for your conventional oven.

Then, I spread the end pieces out on the grate.

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Finally, I set the timer for 1 ½ hours and walked away.

When they’re done, they will be really shriveled and not pretty.

I let them cook down before placing them in a paper bag. I learned the hard way not to place them in a plastic container because they got soggy-ish. The paper bag lets them continue to dry out without getting moldy.

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I know they don’t look like much, but every time Rufus goes out and does his business, he gets one of these. He loves his “Sparaguses”!

First Chewy.com Order

Posted on by vpdairies

You know, I’ve been hearing about Chewy.com for a while now. I never really paid much attention to it because I buy my dog food at Costco and Cian gets his heartworm shot at Banfield (though PetSmart).

If Cian needs something (I want to buy him something), I go to the PetSmart across the street or Petsmart.com. I buy everything for JT, my hamster, on Amazon. So chewy.com didn’t spark anything for me.

But I needed to buy Cian some flea and tick medication. I looked on Amazon but everything was in the $30-$60 range, and I really didn’t want to pay that much if I didn’t have to.

After thinking it about it for a while, I remembered Chewy and figured I’d give them a try.

The first thing I looked for was the flea and tick stuff. I was able to find a 3-month supply of PetAmour Plus. I did research it and it has the same active ingredients and basically the same rating as Frontline for a whole lot less. We don’t have much of a flea and tick problem in southern Arizona, so I’ll be interested to see how it works.

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So, with chewy.com you get free shipping on any order over $49.99. I decided that was just a little too much to order since I hadn’t ordered from them before. But I did want to order a few things to see what their products were like. So, I ended up purchasing 5 different types of treats.

First was a beef trachea. I contemplated whether or not to buy something that sounded so disgusting but went for it.

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I decided this would be the first thing I gave him. I unwrapped it. It felt very odd: greasy, slimy, papery. Basically it was DISGUSTING!!

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Cian smelled it the minute I unwrapped it and started bugging me for it. I gave it to and he took off with it. I wanted to get a picture of him with it but he was having none of that! He really did not want to get close to me and give me the opportunity to take it back.

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I was finally able to get a picture of him when he laid down on his blanket to really start eating it up. He always eats all his really “special” treats on his blanket. But I had to stand across the room from him and zoom in, which did not provide for the best resolution. But as you can see, he was really into it!

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He enjoyed his treat so much that after he finished, he had to take a nice long nap at my feet.

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I also bought him Crunch Kale Treats from Wet Noses. This was the second treat I tried. I was worried about whether or not he would like them because, even though I know kale is a super food, I think it tastes like dirt. He gobbled right up. Then I remembered…he eats dirt all the time. So kale would probably just taste like things he eats every day. Besides being made with kale, I also liked that they were grain free, organic, and non-GMO.

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Then I ordered two different flavors baked dog treats from American Journey: turkey and lamb. These were also grain free, the protein was the first ingredient, had no by-products or artificial preservatives, and with a lot of fruits and vegetables. He’s only tried the turkey so far but he really likes them.

 

The last thing I ordered was a beef marrow bone. So far I’ve held this back. He’ll get this on a special occasion. Grandma is coming in a few weeks, that might be the special occasion that calls for a nice bone full of marrow.

Overall, I liked my experience ordering from Chewy.com and I’ll definitely order from them again.

Treats for Cian

Posted on by vpdairies

Since my daughter is all grownup, my dog has become my baby. Cian is a 2-year old Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I love him to death and spoil him rotten.

I’ve been looking around for easy recipes so I could make him treats. I wanted him to have something that didn’t have a lot of crap in it and was good for him. Cian probably eats better than I do. I mean, the boy eats chicken & pea grain-free organic dog food from Costco (my favorite place to shop).

So I took to Pinterest to find something all natural and good for him. And to be honest, it wasn’t difficult at all. The difficulty was narrowing it down to one or two. I finally settled on this 3 Ingredient Chicken Dog Biscuit. I wanted something that wasn’t going to have a lot of ingredients and wouldn’t take much time.

I pulled together everything I needed. The recipe calls for 1 ¼ cup of flour that is anything but wheat. Wheat is one of the top five allergy provoking ingredients for dogs according to the American Kennel Club. So, I decided on a combination of brown rice and garbanzo bean flours.

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For the liquid, the recipe called for 3 tablespoons of oil (I used a canola, olive, grape oil blend) and a 1/3 cup of chicken broth.

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After I mixed it up and was ready to start rolling it and realized it was too dry. While dog biscuits are supposed to be a little drier, the dough was just too dry. I ended up adding another tablespoon or so of water and the dough was ready. I just purchased this really cool rolling pin that has these rings at the end that make it easier to get it to the thickness/thinness you want. And of course, I purchased it on Amazon, another one of my favorite places to shop.

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The next important decision was which of my doggy treat cookie cutters I should use. These are the cutest little things (again, an Amazon purchase). I wanted a biscuit that wasn’t too big so I decided go with the paw print.

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After rolling it out, I got all the little paws cut out and into the oven they went.

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Twenty minutes in the oven and they are ready for Cian. In fact, he has already had his first one. He likes them and I like knowing exactly what is in them.

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Now off to get the bread machine going and to start baking (not in the bread machine) the five (5) acorn squash my neighbor gave me.