Dog treat recipes for Christmas – the honest truth
If you stumble across and glossy magazine equivalent about dogs or ‘Suzie homemaker’ online, you are going to be hit by a plethora of stories about the best and healthiest dog treat recipes to make for the upcoming holiday season.
The truth is, most of these articles will be written by writers who don’t own a dog, let alone know or care about dog nutrition.
While many articles are trying to diffuse the fact that dogs are 90% carnivores by saying that only cats are obligate carnivores, they also begrudgingly mention that dogs evolved to catch and eat meat, and do MUCH, MUCH better on meat.
Dog treat recipes for Christmas – where they go wrong
Many of the clueless writers think dogs are so much of the family they should share our human omnivore food. YES you can teach a dog to eat carrots and broccoli, and they will like the sugar, BUT they don’t need carbs in their diet at all. And if they eat commercial dog food, they are being starved of their true appropriate dog food – MEAT. So for Christmas give YOUR DOGS more meat, not less!
The average Christmas dog treat recipe will have a list of about 5 to ten ingredients and will feature heavily NON MEAT ingredients, namely mostly flours or one sort or another.
Never in the wild will a dog knowingly aim to ingest wheat on the stalk, wheat fallen on the ground, and definitely NOT wheat over processed into white powder. But if you add sugar and spice (and all things nice for humans) dogs will appear to go ‘whacko’ for these nice looking monstrosities.
Just because its a nice activity to get your children involved in over the Christmas holiday season DOES NOT MAKE IT OK TO FEED MORE GRAINS TO YOUR DOGS.
The truth is that while a dog will tolerate almost food, they only thrive on meat and offal products.
Dog food is grain filled because its cheap, not good for dogs. The last thing that any dog needs are more grain or vegetable protein. 99% of dogs need more meat protein for body maintenance and growth functions.
Christmas treats recipes for dogs
The reason that MEAT dog treat Christmas recipes don’t hit the shelves that much is that advertisers don’t like people being told that they can avoid carbs for their dogs too (ie the main commercial dog food ingredient).
True Christmas dog treat recipes are single ingredient dried meat. Basically, all you need to do is buy a slab of your dog’s favourite meat, Dry it at the right temperature to kill bugs, but not nutrition, and there you have it. We don’t even recommend mince. With straight cuts of meat you are more likely to see the low fat content, that is what your dog needs. And a straight cut always gives a more satisfying chewing challenge.
The reason people don’t cook meat dog treats is that it’s not ‘sexy’, and they often don’t save money. This is because you will be buying meat at mostly retail prices, whereas a meat based dog treat manufacture will buy quality meat or offal cheaper than you can.
You might also not like to smell out your oven and house. A major technical point is that you also need to know how long to dry it for and at what temperature to give it a safe finish and not promote mold. The drying/ cooking process, when done right, does not kill off the meats essential amino acids.
The complexity and cost, and the fact you are not baking cookies with your children as fun Christmas activities usually preclude the perfect Christmas dog treat from ever being mentioned online or elsewhere.
If the magazines can’t make money off commercial dog food advertisers selling grain product on the same page – they won’t tell you anything like this. So now is your choice to do something about this by either spreading the word or dipping your toe in the water of meat dog treat cooking. though given our low online dog treat pricing and quality products we know why most people prefer buying their Christmas dog treats directly from us, and just spending quality time with their children instead.
Leave a Comment