Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Tasty Tuesday (10-16-12)

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I’m all about the easy when it comes to making treats for my dogs.

When Delilah first joined our pack their nightly snack was a processed rolled treat. Either raw hide or pork hide.

Don’t judge.

Delilah’s a food inhaler. We have to invert her food bowl in order for her meal to last longer than 20 seconds.

You think I’m joking.

I’m not.

When I feed her treats, she rarely if ever chews them, the exception being carrots. For some reason she chews carrots.

She is also a treat hog. The first time I gave her a treat, she swallowed hers and went over and took Sampson’s right out of his mouth.

At the time I wasn’t quite as dog savvy as I am now, so I went right over and took it away and handed it back to Sampson.

Not to be deterred, she walked right back over and took it away again.

I was furious. I marched right over and wrestled it from her and gave it back to Sampson, and then I took her by the collar and marched her chocolate ass to the crate, where she remained while Sampson enjoyed his treat.

We quickly learned that separating them worked best for all parties involved.

This didn’t mean she ate her treat any slower.

More than once, I thought she was going to choke to death trying to swallow a large piece of raw hide.

The final straw was the evening she got a piece stuck in her throat. I sat there horrified, screaming for Hubby and she coughed and gagged.

Delilah lowered her head to the floor and used her front paw to dislodge the raw hide.

That was the last time either one of them got that kind of treat again.

From that point forward I began stuffing Kongs. When that got a bit pricey, I switched to stuffing the white bones and freezing them.

The trick to filling any kind of frozen treat such as a Kong or white bone is to have something thick to seal the end.

Peanut butter is great, but it’s also very high in calorie, if you have two little pork chops like I do, you want to try to keep treats as low-calorie as you can.

Yesterday I was fixing to give Sampson his morning antibiotic. His night-time one is easy, it fits right into his ground meat, but he gets necks in the morning so that won’t work.

I’d been using sunflower butter, but I started thinking, I wonder what would happen if I mixed the sunflower butter with pumpkin?

So I did.

A star is born.

Here’s what you need (note I usually just eye-ball it, so the measurements are approximations.)

¼ cup pumpkin

1 tablespoon nut butter of your choice.

Mix the two together and Viola!

 

Quick and easy, great for filling Kongs or bones and it doubles as something to sneak a little medication in.

Note you can also freeze these in molds or ice-cube trays for refreshing treats in the warmer months.

What would you call this treat? Butterkin? Sunkin? Pumpkin butter?

BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask, do any of you have a contact at Kong? I’ve got an idea I’d like to run by them.



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Comments

  4. What a seasonal treat. 🙂 Pumpkin is such a great Kong stuffer and I use it a lot when I have it. I discovered how well yogurt freezes in the summer and have been buying that now too. Anything to keep the crazy at bay.

    • It is a lovely treat. I’ve been to the local warehouse and bought a few sleeves of it. 🙂

      I do use the yogurt too, but as of late I use applesauce as well. Shiva does not have the weight issues that S & D have, so that probably doesn’t help you.

  5. I think Delilah is the anti-Silas.

    We’re also big fans of pumpkin+peanut butter, although I’d never thought about mixing it so thick. We just mix enough to taste.

  7. Great idea for a treat.

    Once I had a question for Kong and I just contacted them through their website. It was a personal response and took a day or two. You might try there.

  11. Sounds yum – and that’s coming from a food hound like Delilah! Sometimes my peoples stuff my kong with banana and freeze it, since banana is my favorite fruit.

  13. Great Idea! I use plain yogurt and pumpkin because Glory gets stressed out when in crate and has stress diarrhea so the yogurt puts the good bacteria back into her and the pumpkin adds fiber. She’s been good so far.