Bacon and Sweet Potato Dog Treats

More and more people in America are cooking for their own pets in a trend toward more natural and healthier eating among the cat and dog members of the family. Many pets seem to be going vegetarian as well as their owners.

I was not able to find a ready made sweet-potato-bacon dog biscuit or treat, but can share this recipe below if you'd like to make your own. You can decide exactly on how much bacon to use in your recipe and you can adjust the spices up or down as you and your dog please.

For a change, you can cut a sweet potato into quarters lengthwise and bake them in a slow oven or process in a dehydrator until crunchy. Some dogs enjoy these alone.

After the recipes are a collection of similar ready made treats your dog might enjoy as well.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Large orange sweet potato – Sweet potatoes come in a range of shades form light yellow to deep orange. Find out which your dopg prefers. Yams are not sweet potatoes, but are tubers that are long and really ugly looking and a light color.
• 3 Whole eggs, lightly beaten in a small bowl
• 3/4 Cup unsweetened applesauce
• ¼ - ½ Cup hard-cooked, crumbled bacon.
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp ginger – Go light on spices unless you know your pet likes them and they’ll do no harm. The ginger might be a bit hot.
• 2 Cups whole wheat flour
• 1 Cup oats – like Quaker oats in the cylindrical box.
• Cooking spray – check for natural ingredients, otherwise use vegetable oil.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
• Cooking spray or oil a muffin pan – large muffins or small muffins is your choice.
• Wash the sweet potato and prick holes all aroundit with a fork.
• You can microwave the potato until well softened, or you can turn up the oven to 350 degrees F and bake it.
• Set cooked potato aside until it has cooled enough to pick up in our hands.
• Rub off the peel and put the potato into a medium sized bowl.
• Add eggs, applesauce, and bacon and mix well. Set aside
• In a larger mixing bowl combine the seasonings, whole wheat flour, and oats (dry ingredients) and mix well with your hands.
• Form a depression in the niddle of the dry ingredients qwith your hands and put the sweet potato mix into it.
• Carefully mix the dry and wet ingredients together thoroughly to form a dough.
• Fill muffin pans half full of the dough.
• Make sure the oven is at 300 degrees F.
• Bake 25-30 minutes for large muffins, and about 15 minutes for small muffins.
• Remove doggie muffins from the oven and cool pans on a cooling rack for 5 miutes or so.
• Turn out the muffins and cool to room temperature on colling racks.
• Store in an air-tight container.

The following are some useful links to additional home cooking ideas for your pet.

• Founders Veterinary Clinic - Home cooking and home made dog food
• Cooking for Your Feline
• Bird Treat Recipes - Birdie Manicotti and Others
• The Pet Cafe, Recipes for Birds - At Cockatiel Cottage, you'll find dozens of good recipes.
• Pet Food - All Recipes - People and pet recipes abound.

If you are concerned about pet food safety at any time, the following links may help.

• US Food and Drug Administration - Recalls and Safety Alerts
• Animal & Veterinary - Specialized FDA animal division.
• Pet Food Alert (petfoodalert) - Twitter postings.
• Holiday pet safety - Food and other safety advice and tips for pets during the holidays, from Beale Air force Base in California.
• Holiday Dangers to Pets from Pawprints and Purrs, Inc.