Snacks & treats
Week 4
Wag that tail in excitement - it's treats & snacks week!
Now you’re preparing regular batches of food for your dog, try to find time this week to cook up some treats to add a little more fresh goodness to your dog’s diet. The aims of this week's tutorial are:
Learn how home-cooked treats and snacks can benefit your dog
Cook up a batch of treats for reward and training
So, sit back, watch this short video, and get cooking :)
Homemade treats & snacks
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are not just the only occasions when fresh home-cooked food can replace processed food – snacks, rewards and training treats can also be homemade. Here are a couple of great recipes to try.
Holly's Bedtime Biscuits
Created by VetChef nutritionists Holly Barker, this recipe for crunchy oat biscuits is ideal as a bedtime snack for your dog. With ginger for the digestion, calming chamomile, and slow-release energy from oats, it will help your dog get a great night's sleep and be raring to go in the morning.
Combine the ingredients by mixing to a dough, roll into 20 golf ball sized portions. Pop onto a baking tray, press lightly to slightly flatten each biscuit.
Bake on 180 fan for 15 mins, then allow to cool thoroughly before serving - feed one biscuit at bedtime, with a dish of warmed goat or oat milk.
Liver training treats
.For dogs in training, these simple but super-tasty treats are ideal rewards for good behaviour and to reinforce new skills. Cook up a batch and use little amounts as training rewards, keeping the rest fresh in the fridge.
Whizz up the liver and egg in a blender or food processor until smooth, and then mix with the flour in a bowl. Pour the mixture into a lined baking tin and cook at 180 degrees for around 30 minutes. Leave to cool and then chop into bite-sized pieces.
Dinner Time
Your dog should now be enjoying regular home-cooked meals, with a few tasty fresh treats on the side.
Try to get into a weekly routine, cooking up one or two recipe batches on the same day each week along with a batch of treats, and using the My VetChef system to track your dog’s meals and what’s in your fridge and freezer.
Dr Joe's top tips
Homemade is best
Compared to processed treats with their plastic packaging, artificial additives, and low-quality ingredients, home-cooked biscuits are not only tastier but often healthier and come with significantly lower environmental impacts.
Keep it fresh
Cook up a batch of treats and store them in the fridge or freezer to keep them nice and fresh.
Treat for two?
All of the VetChef treat and snacks recipes are perfectly good for people as well as dogs, so why not share one with your best friend?
How did it go?
By this stage in your journey from kibble to cooked, your dog should be feeling very pleased with how life is turning out – lots of delicious fresh meals replacing the same-old kibble every day, and tasty treats and snacks as well. And as your dog is rewarded with such delicious food, you’ll hopefully start to be rewarded with a happier, healthier and better-behaved dog. .
Next week we're looking at using home-cooked food to manage medical and dietary health issues- and if you can't wait for the email to come through, click here to skip forwards to week 5.