These homemade dog biscuits are made with peanut butter for an irresistible treat your pet will love.
Have you heard of 23PAWS?
No? Well now you have. Basically, it’s a chance to gush about your pet and post pictures of them. The stuff most people do already, but now with an actual purpose so you don’t feel like as much of a crazy cat/dog/chinchilla/ferret/whatever lady. This is the first official link up Cinnamon is hosting for 23PAWS so if you missed the boat this time around, go check out everyone else’s posts, read up and get prepared for next month.
Ok, now let’s get to the gushing because obviously, I have the best dog ever.
Internet, meet Ginger.
She’s pretty cool.
She used to look like this.
An eight week old, 10 pound puppy who ate so much sand at a jet-ski race she literally pooped out a sand log.
5 years later, she’s all grown up and quite sassy.
She hates little children.
She loves eating mulch.
She likes to roll in other animals’ crap.
She dislikes baths.
She has a very intimate relationship with a stuffed hedgehog.
She doesn’t like to be snuggled.
She sometimes self-diets.
She a complete daddy’s girl.
Every day around 7pm, this is what goes on in my family room.
Ginger turns 5 in two weeks and since this is pretty much her idea of the perfect day,
I decided to make her some homemade peanut butter treats.
Sometimes I feel like a fraud in that I’m so keen on eating healthy myself yet I feed my dog Eukanuba. I literally have dog-mom guilt over that sometimes. I should buy her the organic dog food and I shouldn’t buy her those treats she loves from Sam’s Club but yet, I do. So instead of heading out to Walmart and buying some cancer causing cheap dog biscuits this time around, I made my own.
Was it more involved than throwing a large box of biscuits in my cart and forking over $12.95? Yes. But, it was also a heck of a lot cheaper and didn’t result in any dog-mom guilt.
Someone didn’t seem to mind the homemade kind.
“Mind? Mom, there’s peanut butter in these!”
So I’ve promised myself that from here on out, homemade treats it is. I think we’ll both be happy about that.
Homemade Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup oats
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 banana, mashed
- egg whites for brushing, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper/silpat.
- Combine banana, egg, applesauce and peanut butter in a medium bowl and mash together.
- Add flour and oats and stir to combine.
- Flour a clean surface and roll dough out with a rolling pin, adding as much flour as you need to keep it from sticking (I had to use a generous amount).
- Use a cut out of any shape (I used the top to a jar of jam for small discs) and lay each piece on the baking sheet.
- Brush with egg whites if using and bake for 25-30 minutes.
- Remove from oven and cool on rack.
- Keep sealed in an airtight container.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
I had a dog named Ginger growing up!
The sand log bit had me rolling. :) Gosh pets are so gosh darn funny! Your PB treat recipe looks good…I think I will try it. Our newly-adopted Saint turned up her nose at the (large) box of treats I bought her. She also has no interest in the chewy bone. I think homemade PB treats may be the only option if I want to spoil her. :)
Also, I totally get the dog-mom-guilt thing. I try so hard to keep our (mine and the Hubs’) diets ultra-healthy, but the bottom line is that I just can’t afford organic food for our 3 dogs and 4 cats. Every time I buy grocery-store or pet-store food, I feel that guilt. I buy PurinaOne and I give my dogs lots and lots of love, and I’m slowly getting over the guilt. I am going to try your homemade treat recipe though!
She is so cute! I love seeing photos and hearing about her cause we have a Weimie too! They are so funny. I’ll have to try this treat recipe – I know he’d love them!
They’re the best :) I fully believe no one can understand a weim unless they have one. They’re so nuts in their own little way ;)
Oh my gosh those puppy pictures of her!!!! She’s SO stinking cute!
everybody,
Dont beleive a word about Ginger. Shes not anything like Gina portrays her to be.Just ask My two Sugar and Clare.Theyll tell you the truth.LOL.
BTW Gina,effective7-1-2012 we are only baby sitting 2 legged kids. HAH!
Gina, your dad is funny!
Ginger is adorable and I am impressed that you will be making food for her from now on.
well just biscuits for now ;) I just can’t commit to ALL her food quite yet!
Ahhh she’s so cute, just like my sister’s dog. Love all the pictures- what a nice mom u are!
She’s gorgeous. I love the puppy pictures.
Awesome to make your own dog treats, love it.
One of my dogs is kind of picky, I wonder what she’d think.
So funny that Ginger rolls in other animal’s poop, my dog does that too – Disgusting!!
So nice to find your blog through the blog hop.
I love the puppy photos! Especially the one of Ginger all sprawled out on your husband’s lap. Olive does that too. :) I’ll definitely have to join 23Paws next month!
Also, I recently started switching my dogs over to homemade food because Olive was having trouble digesting the store-bought stuff (we tried multiple brands), and Honey is really picky. I’m still figuring out how to do it without it being a huge time/money suck (and referencing guidelines from a pet nutritionist at MSPCA Angell), but maybe I’ll do a post on it once I come up with something that works.
I would love to hear about your food making endeavors. I feel like since I work from home, I should be able to make my own too but sometimes just getting human food on the dinner table is hard enough with schedules that I really don’t want to add another “person” to cook for!
I am totally all over this 23 Paws thing! Does Ginger like carrots? That’s what we use for treats in this house. The dog’s go nuts for them and baby carrots are just as easy to buy as a box of milkbones :)
I’m so in love with that first puppy picture of Ginger – she is all ears and tongue – I could die!!
Ginger is a total snob and literally won’t eat any produce. I’ve tried fruit and veggies before and she literally grabs them and spits them out on the carpet. Unless she’s at my parents house with other dogs, then she scarfs that stuff so fast b/c it’s like a competition. Definitely an only child kind of thing ;)
I LOVE this post!!! How adorable Ginger is! I love the photo of her sitting in the chair, cracks me up!! Her face is priceless. I try to make homemade biscuits, but I get lazy so I buy Trader Joe’s all natural dog bones. We go through bones in our house like there’s no tomorrow! Have a great weekend and I just love your post today.
Dam you, now I’m thinking, maybe I should make some dog biscuits to?
I know, that chair picture cracks me up every time I see it. If I had to put words to her expression it would be something like “I am queen of this chair. WHAT are you looking at, human?”
I’ve never seen the TJ’s biscuits…if they’re as cheap as the rest of their stuff, that might be tempting!
There all natural dog biscuits/bones that come in peanut butter, meat variety or a mix of both. There, I think either $2.99 or $3.99 a box. It’s the only bones that do not give my dog an earache. Some food tend to do that to her.