Ultimate Dog Snacks

If you’ve read my posts for awhile, you know I’ve got a pup. She’s very old, 13 for an Akita, which is old indeed. And she has cancer. And there’s nothing we can do at this point except keep her comfortable. Which we are doing and grateful for every minute we get.

Here she is, a little pissed off because she wanted to go for a walk but didn’t realize it was snowing.

She’s also been, historically, a very picky eater. And now she’s gotten to the point where she’s super super picky. The doctor has told us to go ahead and feed her anything she wants to eat, table food and the like, as long as it’s not harmful to her. At her age, with her condition, it’s not like we are worrying about obesity. As long as it’s not upsetting her stomach or bad for her, it’s fair game. Her appetite waxes and wanes, but when it’s waxing she’s LOVING the fact that we are now her slaves and will feed her half of our dinner if she’ll eat it.

She’s not been a big fan of the normal doggy snacks I’ve give her. But she loves my jerky. Jerky has to be one of the most natural things for a dog to snack on. It’s basically meat and that’s it. Mind you, you’ve got to cut the nitrites and the salt and seasonings, but they love it. Old or not, jerky is one of those awesome “I can share this with you” snacks while you and Rover are chillin’ watching TV. So I made her a big ole pile of it.

First, you don’t HAVE To use ground beef. I use grass fed ground beef though. It’s softer for her, not quite as chewy. Grass fed is also leaner, and fat is a bad idea when making jerky. It makes it go rancid.

You also don’t have to marinade it. Most dogs will eat it totally plain. But since she’s picky, I marinade it in low sodium natural beef broth.

Then I whipped out my jerky gun. Gadget alert. However, it’s a needed tool when you are making jerky from ground meat. Otherwise you will spend forever forming weird patties that won’t be of a consistent size and basically end up drying at different rates.

Shove the meat into the gun.

Now squeeze it all onto the dehydrator trays. It’s sort of vulgar and gross and kind of fun to do this.

Mine generally only takes about 4-6 hours to dry totally. But I have a bad ass dehydrator so that could be why. It comes out fabulous.

Pat it dry with a paper towel to get off an excess fat that could make it go bad. I store mine in the fridge. And the pup LOVES it. Thank goodness!

It gives her a lot of natural calories and proteins and it’s something she almost NEVER turns her nose up at even when she won’t eat anything else.

I see no reason why you couldn’t give this to a healthy young pup as well. I give these to my 3 year old border collie all the time as well, after clearance from the doc. He said as long as there’s not tons of salt or seasoning, and it’s properly dried, it’s actually a pretty healthy snack for a dog. So I’m thrilled.

This will definitely be on the menu for my pups as a permanent item. It’s fast and easy, plus it’s tasty and I can eat it too (YAY! A blood sugar friendly food!).

I’m sure if you make this for your best friend, you’ll get a lot of tail wags and probably be followed around the house for the rest of your life. I think it’s like doggy crack, they absolutely love it!

Bacon Onion & Cheddar Carb Laden Flour Things

Ok, so they are biscuits. They are pioneer woman’s biscuits. Doesn’t mean I can eat them. However, I’ve always been fascinated by biscuits. It’s hard to find a REALLY good biscuit. Most of them are dry or tasteless, but when you do find a good one, they are REAL good.

So I thought this sounds perfect!

#1: It’s PW. I love her. She’s awesome.

#2: Bacon.

#3: Cheddar. Everything is better with cheddar.

#4: Onions. The wonderful, tasty little veggie, gas and bad breath inducing as it may be.

#5: Bacon

Can’t go wrong right?

So, first, I fried up some bacon. Hmmmmm, bacon.

It’s supposed to be done, but not too crispy.

Then, chop that up with some onions. I used my trust processor for this.

Then we mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and shortening using a pastry cutter.

Then whisk together the milk and the egg.

Add some oil.

By the way, did I tell you how much I love the recipe manager on my Ipad? It’s a God-send.

Now whisk the oil, egg, milk mix some more.

Now put your cheese into the flour mixture.

Then add the bacon onion mixture.

And finally add the milk mixture.

Now mix that up really good and well. It’s gonna be super super lumpy.

Grease up some muffin pans, in whatever way you will. I use Pam. And drop the mix into the pans by the heaping spoonful. I actually filled mine up pretty good because I didn’t want little muffins.

Bake them for 22 minutes at 375. And you’ll have nice golden Bacon Onion Cheddar Biscuits.

How were they? They were ok. I really want to jump for joy and tell you they were amazing. But I just though, eh, they were ok. HOWEVER, the boys loved them.

Keep in mind that I didn’t use super sharp cheddar either, because all I had was mild, and that I’m not used to carbs. So my primal palette has sort of adjusted and most carbs now tastes kind of plain to me. I suppose with the addition of more salt and sharper cheddar, and believe it or not perhaps MORE cheddar, these would have been really good. To me at least. But they got eaten up by everyone else.

So my quest for the perfect biscuit shall continue!

Even though I really don’t eat biscuits.

And when I do they make my blood go super thick.

And typically they aren’t my favorite thing in the world.

Don’t ask me why I search. I’m mental. You knew this.