Gifts for Furry Friends

One very important member of my family felt a little left out last weekend when I made all my holiday cookies and candy: my dog, Louie! Anyone who has a dog probably knows that when the peanut butter jar gets opened, the begging begins. And last weekend's baking extravaganza involved quite a bit of peanut butter. I thought I would throw Louie a bone (pun intended), and make him some cookies of his very own using his favorite ingredient.

Peanut Butter Dog Treats (from A Cozy Kitchen )

There are loads of recipes for homemade dog treats out there, but I went with this one because it seemed relatively healthy and I already had most of the ingredients.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of peanut butter (I used the creamy kind)
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon of coconut oil (or olive oil)
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour

I used a small (3 inch) cookie cutter since I have a small dog. If you are making treats for a larger dog you could definitely go bigger.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together peanut butter, honey, oil and chicken broth. In a separate bowl, combine flours and oatmeal. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Place dough on flour dusted surface. Roll or press dough out to about 1/4” inch thick. Cut out cookies. Roll out leftover scraps and cut out as many as possible until you run out of dough. Put cut out cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 14-16 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Using a small cookie cutter this recipe produced about 40 treats.

Louie was a big fan of these biscuits. If he could have jumped high enough to reach them when they were cooling on my kitchen table, he would have devoured them all in one go. Believe me, he tried.

Louie looks very nonchalant here, but in fact he is showing incredible restraint by not eating that treat. What a good boy!

I hope this post has inspired you to try making your own dog treats. These are really pretty easy to throw together and they will make your pup very happy indeed. Over the holidays, Louie plans to share some of them with all his doggie buddies.

These treats would make a great gift for any dogs or dog lovers you know!

Happy Howlidays!