post #5 Cookie Time!!!

February 14^th- Valentine’s day- is also Baron’s fourth birthday! To honor his special day I made him cookies.

I’m sure most of you have figured out that since Baron was diagnosed with epilepsy I am very cautious of what he eats. I constantly read ingredient labels and decipher the long list of words that the average person can’t even pronounce, let alone understand what these ingredients are. Unfortunately this makes it really difficult to find treats for him. Because it’s so hard to find treats I have had to improvise and try to make yummy healthy treats for him. Below is a recipe that I came up with that all of my dogs really enjoy. These treats are very easy to make, and my dogs love them! The horses like them too!

 Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 egg

Instructions

1. preheat oven to 350F
2. In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, and the egg. Add peanut butter, water, honey and stir until you have stiff dough. The dough becomes very firm and sticky (similar in consistency to bread dough.). I just mix the dough with my hands. I have found that when I use a mixer the dough gets really tough and the cookies end up hard when you bake them.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough about 1/2 inch thick and use a cookie cutter to make shapes. The treats barely spread or rise, so you can get creative with your shapes. When I’m in a hurry I have also just rolled the dough into small balls and flattened them out. The dogs don’t really care if they are pretty.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

A few notes to consider before you make your own dog treats:

Some people don’t like to give their dogs wheat due to allergies or other reasons so if you don’t want to use wheat flour you can use rice flour but you will end up using quite a bit more of it because the rice flour doesn’t absorb the wet ingredients as well and for some reason the dough is really soupy. When I tried it I think I used four or five cups of rice flour.

You could take out the honey if you want but in my experience the cookies are more moist and hold together better with it in there. Also, when I make them for my horses they seem to like them with more honey.

During the holidays I like to make these and use festive cookie cutters. I also put them in decorative containers and give them to friends as a gift for their pets. 

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