Homemade Dog Biscuits

The last few times I made Gracie homemade dog biscuits, I modified the Homemade Doggie Chef Biscuits recipe I normally use (click here for the old recipe).

I decided to add in a little bone meal powder and some old fashioned rolled oats (not instant or quick cook).

These homemade dog biscuits may not look pretty, but I didn't have time to roll out the dough and use my dog-biscuit cookie cutter. Instead I used the "icebox cookie" technique and rolled the dough into logs, which I then sliced and flattened with my hands. It saved A LOT of work!

Gracie LOVES these crunchy biscuits and starts jumping all over the place when I take the lid off her biscuit jar.

Next time I'll run the oats through a blender, to turn them into oat flour, before mixing them in.

Homemade Dog Biscuits
(makes about 35 biscuits)


Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

4 eggs
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1/2 cup water (approximate; add more, in small amounts, if needed)
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon bone meal powder
1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats

Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Stir with a large spoon or fork and then thoroughly mix with your hands. Dough will be stiff and dry. Add more water, if needed, one tablespoon at a time.

Form dough into a large round. Cut into three equal parts. Form one of the three parts into a thick, cylindrical roll, about two inches in diameter. Slice the roll, making the slices about 1/2 inch thick. Flatten each in the palms of your hand. Place on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Repeat with the remaining two parts of dough. The unbaked biscuits can be placed close together, but not touching, on the cookie sheets.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 20-25 minutes. Turn each biscuit over and bake for another 20 minutes. For crunchy biscuits, shut off oven and leave biscuits in oven to cool. Store in an airtight container.
"Bone" appetit!

How We Make Doggie Chef Meatloaf

Doggie Chef Meatloaf is easy to make and easy to freeze in portions, for future meals. This is what I currently put in Gracie's meatloaf:

Lean ground beef (about 92% lean)

(When Gracie was a younger dog I used fattier ground beef. In the winter I sometimes still use 85% lean ground beef to provide extra energy for outdoor play and warmth. Or I add some corn oil into the lean meatloaf mixture for the same reason.)

Eggs

Grated carrots (I prefer the taste of peeled, organic carrots so that's what I use in Gracie's meatloaf. I always grate the carrots finely for easier digestion.)

Rolled oats

Powdered milk (For added calcium)

Wheat germ

Herbs for flavor (I use parsley, sage, basil, rosemary and a very light sprinkling of salt and black pepper.)

Corn oil (To grease the baking pan and to provide extra fat during the winter months.)

How I make Gracie's meatloaf: 

Preheat oven to 350 F. and put all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl:

Mix thoroughly, by hand, until all ingredients are incorporated:

Form the mixture into a loaf and place in a baking dish or baking pan greased with corn oil:

Bake at 350 F until done. Cut in half to check doneness:

Slice into portions or mash into a meatloaf mixture:

Serve and/or store in refrigerator or freezer.

Homemade Doggie Chef Biscuits

I don't like feeding Gracie too much of anything, including dog biscuit treats. Everything in moderation, with the aim of sustaining the best health.

I give Gracie one large crunchy biscuit in the morning after she eats breakfast, and one at night after she eats dinner. She gets a small crunchy biscuit in the late afternoon when she comes in from her “bathroom break.”

Gracie receives additional biscuits at specific times:

Bath Day: She gets a large biscuit to coax her into taking a bath, and three small biscuits to coax her into shaking herself dry --- and to thank her for enduring the bath!

When Training: Gracie gets an additional small biscuit or two, broken into pieces, if I’m training her.

Manicure Day: She'll also get a small biscuit, broken into pieces, when I’m clipping her nails (one piece of biscuit after each clip).

Several years ago I came across a dog biscuit recipe in the back of a Fanny Farmer baking book. Gracie loves these biscuits. She literally jumps around in anticipation when I’m getting her one and she eats them with noticeable delight:

Homemade Dog Biscuits

(From Fanny Farmer with some Doggie Chef modifications)

This recipe can be doubled

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons soy flour (okay to omit; I rarely use it)

2 Tablespoons wheat germ

2 Tablespoons nonfat dry milk

4 Tablespoons water (approximate; add more, in small amounts, if needed)

2 cups whole wheat flour (or unbleached, all-purpose flour; or a mixture of both)

Slightly beat eggs in a large bowl. Add soy flour (if using), wheat germ, dry milk and water. Stir until smooth. Add flour and mix with hands. Dough will be stiff and dry. Pat dough into a rectangle one-half inch thick and cut into shapes with a knife or cookie cutter. Or roll dough into logs (3/4 to 1-inch diameter) and cut log into 2-inch segments. Flatten slightly to keep from rolling off cookie sheet. Or just break off biscuit-sized pieces of dough and flatten each between your palms to form a disk. The resulting biscuits won’t be as attractive, but your dog won’t mind.

Place shapes 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 325 degrees F, about 20-25 minutes on one side. Turn each biscuit over and bake about another 20-25 minutes. Turn off the oven when biscuits appear done. For hard, crunchy biscuits, leave them in the oven to cool for an hour or more. The longer they cool in the oven, the harder and crunchier they’ll be.

For extra hard, crunchy biscuits cool completely in the turned off oven. Then bake again at 325 degrees F for 5 to 7 minutes and cool in the oven once more.

While baking dog biscuits is pretty easy, it’s much more convenient to buy them ready-made. Especially in the summer, when baking heats up the kitchen. All Gracie's meals are homemade, but I fed her Milk-Bone traditional, unflavored dog biscuit treats ("small" and "large") regularly before I discovered the homemade dog biscuit recipe (shown above). And I've given Gracie Milk-Bones when I don't have time to bake biscuits. Milk-Bone traditional biscuits contain no artificial colors or flavors and their ingredient list isn't too complicated to investigate. However, they do contain preservatives. Now that Gracie's older I've decided to stick with homemade biscuits only.

**** Post Update: Here's what I do (click on the following phrase) When There's No Time For Homemade Dog Biscuits.

**** New Homemade Dog Biscuit Recipe -- Posted Jan. 19, 2011

Easy Poached Doggie Chicken

Most of the chicken meat I give Gracie comes from fryer chickens I buy at the grocery store. I often roast these chickens in the oven or cook them in a slow cooker. Recently I started cooking them another, easy way: poaching them in a pot of seasoned water.

To poach a chicken I first wash it under cold running water, removing the bag containing the neck and organ meats from inside the chicken. I then remove most of the chicken skin (using a kitchen scissors) and put the chicken in a large pot. I add about an inch or two of water to the pot, pour a little dry sherry wine over the chicken (for flavor), then sprinkle it with seasonings: lots of parsley, a tiny bit of salt and pepper, some rosemary, basil and sage.

I also wash the chicken neck and organ meat and place them in a separate, smaller, pot with a little water and dry sherry wine.

I put both pots on the stove top, covered, over medium flames, until they just reach a boil. Then I lower the flame and poach the chicken and organ meats in simmering liquid until they're done. The chicken usually takes a more than an hour (I cook it until the leg meat falls off the bone and the juices run clear) but the neck and organ meats only take about 25 minutes. I check both about halfway through their cooking times to make sure the water hasn't boiled out of the pot.

After both have cooled to room temperature I cut up the organ meats (heart, gizzard, liver), add it to the neck meat (which I remove from the neck bone) and store it in a container.

I then remove as much meat as possible from the chicken, including some of the very soft, white cartilage (NOT the harder cartilage). I cut it all up and mix it together (so the dark and white meats are mixed together) and store it in containers in the freezer for future meals.

Homemade Doggie Chef Bread

I like to make homemade bread for Gracie. A bread machine with a dough cycle is very helpful if you make homemade bread frequently. I hardly ever bake bread in my bread machine. I mostly use the bread machine to mix up and raise the dough.

Here's the recipe I use to make Gracie's Doggie Bread:

1 1/3 cups warm water

1 Tablespoon brown sugar or honey
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast (Fleischmann's Rapid Rise or Bread Machine Yeast works best)

Place all ingredients in the bread machine, in the above order. If baking in the bread machine, choose the basic, white bread, light crust or similar setting. If you want to bake the bread in your oven, just choose the dough cycle. Check dough about 5 minutes after it starts kneading. It should be smooth. Add a little water if it appears too dry. Let dough rise in the bread machine.
Remove dough from bread machine. Shape into a loaf and let rise in a lightly greased loaf pan until it crowns about 1-inch above the pan's rim. Or shape dough into a large baguette or two small baguettes and let rise on a baking sheet until almost double in size.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven about 30 minutes or until done.

Here's a loaf  I baked in the bread machine:

Here's my favorite way to bake Gracie's bread --- shaped like a big baguette. It

provides more chewy surface area baked this way.

Here's a loaf I baked in a loaf pan:

I don't like feeding Gracie too much doughy bread so I often leave a fresh baked loaf of bread out on the counter overnight to dry out a little before packing it away for future Doggie meals. Or I'll cut it up and toast it in the oven to dry it out.

This bread recipe is very forgiving. You can use less or more salt, sugar/honey and rolled oats. You can replace a small portion (1/4 or 1/3 cup) of either flour with oat flour (made from grinding up additional rolled oats). You can replace some, or all, of the rolled oats with whole wheat berries, or rye or wheat flakes. You can also use more wheat flour (just use that much less white flour). Using a higher percentage of wheat flour will require a little more water when making the dough and a longer rising time.

Most of the time I use store-bought whole wheat bread in Gracie's meals. Click here to see which kind I use.

Brown Rice

Brown rice is an excellent, inexpensive way to provide carbohydrates and other nutrients in homemade dog meals. It's also easily digestible if cooked with plenty of moisture. I usually make brown rice for Gracie in the microwave. Here's an easy method:

1 cup uncooked brown rice

2 1/4 cups water

Combine rice and water in covered, microwave safe dish. Microwave on HIGH (100% full power) power for five minutes, or until water is boiling. Reduce power level to Medium (50% ) and microwave 25 minutes more or until water is absorbed. Let stand for five minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve or store in the refrigerator.

This recipe can be doubled. Use a larger cooking dish and first microwave on HIGH for 10 minutes. Then reduce power level to 50% and microwave for 30 minutes or longer, until water is absorbed.

Like many whole grains, if the cooked rice is very dry you might notice much of the grain will just pass through your dog's digestive tract. I prefer cooking brown rice with enough water to keep the grains moist for better digestibility and nutrient absorption. Every microwave is different so you might have to adjust the amount of water slightly. If the grains seem too dry you can add water at the end of the final cooking time and cook for several minutes longer on medium power.