Training Treats Recipe

So McM and I are back in training. After the first session, he had gone through 3/4 of a bag of $7 training treats. Now I know where I can get said treats for cheaper or even use other treats, but I'm weird when it comes to feeding the dogs. I don't want anything not made in the USA. (If you ever read about dog food recalls, a large part come from China). I don't want to spend 30 minutes figuring out where the dog food was made. Finally there are 2 Mom & Pop shops near us, so I like to support the community. But even still, $7 is too much. The treats at least need to be supplemented with something else.

So off to the Googles I went and found this recipe. I had all of the ingredients except the bananas, so I bought those and made some treats. They are easy, but take a bit of time. This could also be that I was feeling sort of lazy in that I didn't feel like getting a mixer out so I mashed/mixed everything by hand.

The result...McM likes them for about 20 minutes of training and then he wants something else. The other 2 don't get 30-40 minutes of training, so they are fine with the 10 minutes a day of instruction they get.

I doubled the below recipe and it made a lot. I would make again.

This is the recipe as written.  I had another tray like this.  Photo by ALB

Training Treats Recipe

Recipe from Love my Puppy Dog

Ingredients
1/2 Cup All Natural Peanut Butter (I used Creamy Jif)
1/4 Cup Warm Water
1/2 Cup Mashed or Pureed Banana (1/2C = ~1.5 bananas)
1 Tblsp. Honey
1 Egg
1 3/4 Cups Wheat Flour

Parchment Paper
Pizza Cutter

Instructions
Mix the peanut butter and warm water in a large bowl with a fork until completely smooth.

With a food processor or by hand (by smashing with a fork), puree the banana until fairly smooth.

Add banana, honey and egg to peanut butter and warm water bowl, mix until well blended.

Mix in 1 cup of the flour until well blended.

Add remaining flour 1/4 cup at a time until a stiff dough forms. I find it easier to blend in the remainder of the flour with my hands because the dough is stiff.

Chill for approximately 20 minutes before rolling.

Once chilled, then place dough on one piece of parchment paper and cover the dough with a second piece of parchment paper for rolling.

Flatten a bit with your hand to make rolling a little easier.

Roll dough out to desired thickness, about 3/8" or so.

Place the rolled dough with parchment on a cookie sheet to cut into pieces for training treats. Using a pizza cutter, roll across the dough to cut long strips into the dough. Approx. 1/2" space between cuts.

Then go back across in the other direction cutting thru the dough to make small kibble sized pieces. Approx. 1/2" space between cuts.

Place the entire slab of cut dough with parchment paper on a cookie sheet and place into a pre-heated oven at 300 degrees and bake for 30 minutes and cook.

After I finish cooking I shut off the oven and leave the home made dog treats in the oven for a couple of hours to make sure they are completely dry and crunchy.

Once they are hard and crunchy, remove from the oven and break apart the pieces. This way they can be stored for a long time without worrying about them spoiling. If you have them that long that is!

The treats finished.  Photo by ALB