Give the Dog a Bone: Over 40 healthy home-cooked treats, meals and snacks for your four-legged friend
Is there a more spectacular sight than seeing dogs of all shapes and sizes having the time of their lives, doing exactly what they love best? (That’s playing and eating, by the way.)How about making delicious treats for your canine companion to enjoy, and having them look at you with those adoring puppydog eyes all over again?Now you can do both!More than simply a captivating collection of adorable dogs and puppies loving life, GIVE THE DOG A BONE contains over 40 delicious, easy and healthy recipes for doggy treats that your pet is bound to love, from one dog-lover to another, all tried-and-tested by Darcey the miniature Dachshund.Including treats perfect for long walks, everyday recipes, special occasion goodies, training treats and healthy snacks, this is a must for all dog-lovers that will make your faithful friend fall in love with you all over again.
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HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Text Copyright © Nicola Millbank 2018
Photographs of Darcey (here, here, here, and cover) copyright © Ellis Parrinder 2018. All other images copyright © Shutterstock and copyright © iStock
Nicola Millbank asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN 978-0-00-824603-7
eBook ISBN: 978-0-00-824604-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
CONTENTS
Peanut Butter, Oat & Chicken Stock Bones
Peanut Butter & Banana Biscuits
Goat’s Cheese & Broccoli Balls
Apple & Yoghurt Dipped Biscotti
Raspberry & Banana Granola Balls
Frozen Watermelon & Mint Bites
Dog-friendly Strawberry Ice Cream
Oscar’s Oat, Banana & Cashew Nut Butter Truffles
Homemade Peanut & Cashew Nut Butters
Cream Cheese Drizzle Cinnamon Rolls
Kale, Carrot & Parmesan Mini Omelettes
Mollie’s Beef & Egg ‘Muttloaf’
Chicken ‘Egg Fried Rice’ Muffins
Blueberry Yoghurt Iced Doughnuts
Peanut Butter & Banana Mini Cupcakes
Viktor’s Strawberries & Cream Valentine Kisses
Frozen Peanut Butter & Jelly Popsicles
Flaxseed, Blueberry & Spinach Smiles
A warm and tail-wagging welcome to Give the Dog a Bone!
I’m a cookbook author and the proud owner (albeit sometimes not-so-proud owner) of a very loving and playful miniature dachshund named Darcey. I have always loved making treats for Darcey: from biscuits to jerky, birthday cupcakes to ‘oh no, I’ve run out of kibble’ impromptu dinners, I’ve become quite inventive over the years and while the prospect of making biscuits, treats and other food for your dog might seem both whimsical and daunting, I assure you, it’s extremely easy and a satisfyingly fun thing to do.
Despite our best intentions to feed our dogs the best it’s always difficult to know what exactly goes into their treats. We’ve all heard the stories of junk being added to bulk out dog food, or the dangers of chemically bleached cow hide bones and hidden nasties in dog treats, making it hard to monitor what our pets are eating. The best way to really do this is to make food and treats yourself at home.
I’m aware that some dogs, just like us humans, have a wheat or nut allergy and so this book includes a number of gluten-free and nut-free options. However, for those dogs who enjoy peanut butter as much as Darcey, I urge you to make your own peanut butter from scratch. It takes minutes and is incredibly simple to do. A lot of cheaper supermarket brands contain oil, salt and artificial sweeteners, most notably a product called xylitol, a sweetener that is extremely toxic to dogs. The best way to avoid any doubt is to make your own nut butters yourself – you can even help yourself to some homemade peanut butter on toast for breakfast; it’s 100 per cent peanuts and tastes delicious. If your dog has a peanut allergy, you can use cashews instead; although too many cashews can cause tummy problems, they are fine in small doses as treats.
As part of a varied diet, incorporating the right ‘human foods’ into your dog’s mealtimes can be extremely beneficial for their health, so I’ve included a chapter that caters to easy treats and dinners, using ingredients that you might well be cooking for yourself and have going spare. Meatballs are an obvious hit, while egg-fried-rice muffins have saved me on those days when I’ve run out of dog food. Cooking broccoli or cauliflower that is a day or two past its best is the perfect way to avoid any food wastage and can be stored in the freezer until needed to add a nutritious and tasty accompaniment to your dog’s meal.
While some recipes might be more appropriate to certain dogs than others, none of these recipes are breed-specific and will on average make about 12 or more treats. This will obviously depend on the size and breed of your dog and, when making biscuits, the size of the cookie cutter you’re using. For Darcey I use a small cookie cutter, which is a good treat size for a dachshund, meaning there are always a few biscuits left over from the dough mixture. I tend to freeze leftovers (many of the recipes are suitable for freezing – see instructions in the recipes). If you’re feeding a larger dog you’ll want to use a larger cookie cutter, so you won’t have as many left over, but it’s important to remember that nobody knows your dog better than you and you’ll know better than anyone what is a good-size treat and how often they should be allowed it. As with every treat, remember to give them as part of a varied diet and don’t overdo it or you’ll end up with a roly-poly; I speak from experience, Darcey was at one point a ‘sausage roll’!
