Doggie biscuits

I love baking, and I love dogs, so when I found a whole site of doggie bakes from Chihuahua breeder Blue Boy Chihuahuas I knew I was on to a winner. I always worry with shop bought dog food when I start reading the ingridents and don't know what half the things I'm giving to my dog are, and with increasing concern that cheaper pet food might actually be making our four legged friends ill, home preparing seems like a good idea.  I don't want to feed my dog anything that she wouldn't naturally eat or would be considered unfit for human consumption.

The only thing I would say is a lot of recipes called for garlic powder, which I would avoid like the plague as garlic (certainly in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels) can scour kidneys and cause a lot of upset. So personally I would leave garlic or onion out of any recipe for dogs.

But I found this recipe which I decided to give a go, having bought my bone shaped cookie cutter from Amazon and patiently waited for it to drop on my door mat all week I cracked on with the milk bone recipe

Milk bones  

        You will need 

• 3/4 cup hot water
• 5oz  margarine
• 4 oz powdered milk
• 1 pinch salt (Although this may be left out)
• 1 egg - beaten
• 15 oz whole wheat flour (plus extra for dusting)
  
  
  Method. 
• In large bowl pour hot water over the margarine. 
• Stir in powdered milk, salt, and egg. 
• Add flour, 2 oz at a time. 
• Knead for a few minutes to form stiff dough. 
• Pat or roll to 1/2 inch thickness. 
• Cut into bone shapes. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes.

Allow to cool before giving to your pooch. Store in an air tight container for up to a week. 


They will dry out in to lovely crunchy treats for your beloved hound. This recipe makes a lot of treats, about 40. Unless you have a whole pack of St Bernard's you will probably be pleased to hear the mixture freezes, so you if you pre-cut the shapes you can have tasty treats in less than an hour for your little fur baby.
I used granary flour mix in mine instead of whole wheat for added crunch, another nice variation would be to add a little cooked diced meat or low fat cheese to the mix. Of course then the treats would need to be kept refrigerated.     

This recipe is a lot nicer than other dog treat recipes I've seen. Many of which call for having to handle liver and other associated offal. This recipe made the kitchen smell of warm milk and fresh bread which was much more pleasing to the human inhabitants of the house.
In fact we even tried them in our tomato soup and quite enjoyed them.  Please do remember though that these are treats and should only be used to supplement a round and healthy diet for you and your dog.
  

 My little rascal Medi was more than happy to model a couple of these tasty morsels for this blog, and thinks I should do more doggie features in future!