Dog Treat production: Go get Meat!

I think I will forever be thought of as the "Liver Lady" and Wags' Training Facility will be known (at least to the dogs) as the Place where the Best Cookies in Town can be found. 
So, what's the Secret? What do I put into my training bag and what are the Magic Training treats?

I thought I would share in photos How some of the Amazing Treats are made that many students ask about and marvel over. 

First off - I make almost all of my training "cookies" at home, myself. And while I call them cookies, they are actually not cookies at all but more or less all MEAT. And that's pretty well it - if there is a "Secret" - you just heard it, so you could stop right here :-) Go get Meat! 
I feed my dogs a RAW diet and hand in hand with that seems to have developed a deep desire to really know  the ingredients in their food and treats - and so I've found that this just makes overall sense, as well as being Delicious and very High in value for the dogs.

Whenever possible I get my hands on organ meats and buy those to turn into cookies. Liver (in moderation), heart, kidney and tongue are fantastic and often found at very reasonable prices. Most dogs go absolutely nuts over any and all of these!

In the absence of organ meats - I look for sales in the meat department and have often found that you can get large beef roasts for as little as $8-$10. That's about the same price that you would pay for a bag of commercially prepared treats - which are often full of all kinds of ingredients that you'd never want to put into your own body :-( (so why feed that to our dogs?)
So here we go: here are illustrated steps for becoming a Cookie Factory :-)

This is Heart. By the time I thought of documenting the treat-making process , these pieces had already been through  stage 1: boiling on the stove in water.
And just to be clear - I do the same with a steak, with liver, kidney, tongue...boil first.

After the meat has boiled, I find it easiest to just take a pair of scissors and go to town: cut the  meat  straight onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Here we go now -- a cookie sheet loaded with boiled meat: all cut up and ready to go into the oven to be dried up a bit more. You COULD stop at this stage and just use the treats like this...but they are quite wet and not particularly nice to put into pockets, so that's the reason for continuing to the Oven stage :-)

Here the treats are: after the oven. See the difference? Now they are almost like Jerky, and most people have no issue with sticking these in their pockets.

More of the dried Jerky-type heart cookies. From here I use scissors to cut them even smaller. Green pea-size or just smaller is a good  size reference when you think of how big your Training treats should be.

So there we have it - turning a piece of Fresh meat into Amazing Dogs-Will-Love-Them "Cookies"! Really very easy! 

But WAIT - DON'T STOP THERE: Use the water you boiled the meat in!! This is amazing broth that I use for making Frozen Kongs.

While I just told you I feed my dogs RAW - I do usually have some high quality kibble around. I switch my own dogs to kibble for camping and travel, when having access to a fridge or freezer is very hard, so I do occasionally feed them kibble - and when I make treats (as above) I DO love utilizing that lovely broth that is left in the pot after boiling meat.

What happens while the broth is warm, is that when you pour kibble directly into it - the kibble just soaks up all the broth and completely falls apart - becoming almost a puree...which - when frozen, is a Very cool challenge for the dogs to extract!!!

After boiling your meat; pour kibble right into the broth that is in the pot and let sit  for a few hours.  The  kibble soaks up all the liquid. I've added some oats, a few pieces of the Real meat and other things of "goodness" here as well.

Now - get your Kongs and other stuffable food toys out and ready!

To the left are veggie and fruit mash/mix that normally would be mixed into my dogs' regular meals. This time I decided to add some of it to the kibble-mix that was going into the Kongs.

And VOILA! A collection of food-stuffed Kongs and Busy Buddy-toys ready for the freezer :-) Yes, from here I take this whole pile of Kongs - throw them into a grocery bag to keep the freezer clean and just toss the whole plastic bag in the deep freezer. Then, the next time you want to give your dog "something to do" for a while - pull out a frozen meal: serve frozen! A fantastic thing to have on hand for days when you simply want to keep your dog occupied. 

Easy peasy?! 
Perhaps it goes without saying, but obviously if you haven't taught your dog to eat his meals from food-toys - you need to start with that first BEFORE you start freezing them! If your dog isn't already hooked on the idea of eating his regular food from a food toy like these - it will likely just be very frustrating to him if his food is now also frozen. So - in that case - start with the unfrozen version and just GRADUALLY make the challenge of getting the food out a bit harder! 

Once they are hooked on the idea, though - WOW - is this ever a fun way to serve a meal and a great, great way to keep your dog happily chewing for quite an extended time - as well as send your dog back into his natural roots and origin as a Master Scavenger and Extractor extraordinaire!!

Have FUN with your Treat Factory!!

Elmo

This is Elmo. He belongs to friends of the family. The first few photos are ones that have only been shared privately so far but as I added to the "Elmo collection" this past weekend, it felt timely to share a few photos here as well.
We were visiting just before Christmas, and it just so happened that Elmo had paid a recent visit to the groomer and being that my camera was with me - I decided to snap a few photos of the Handsome Fella.

The red bow from the groomer was just too adorable and perfect on the red chair.

This past weekend we had the pleasure of having Elmo for a couple of sleep-overs and of course a few more photos had to be added to the Elmo-collection. He's such a lovely dog; easy and sweet - by day 2 he was fitting into our household as if he'd been here for a long, long time. The dogs were all at peace and co-existing as if there was nothing more natural and usual. 

In these final and most recent shots, I love how his hair has grown and he seems to be sporting a bit of bed head in these shots taken on Sunday morning. "King Elmo" - just awaking from his Beauty Sleep :) What a Great Dog!

Am I brave enough to say it out loud?

It's February and it's time to "spell it out" and put down some Goals for 2013 in Writing. I've been collecting strength and strategy / wondering if I will be brave enough to actually verbalize it? 
Some of you know I come from a Visual Arts background first and that Dog Training  - like for most of today's Trainers - is a second career. The super short version of my first educational background is that I did a Master's in Visual Communication - having had a love and passion for all art as well as photography for a long time. My first real job out of University was working as a Freelance Photographer for  the Daily Gleaner in Fredericton, NB. Simultaneously I held a part-time job as Media Production Assistant at UNB; assisting in the department of Media Services and catering to the University's Visual needs. Well - fast forward about 15 years and photography was for many of these years left aside while pursuing the second Passion of my Life: Dogs. I didn't know whether I would ever return to Photography or not. For a while - as film cameras everywhere were replaced by Digital cameras - I didn't even have anything other than a point-and-shoot digital camera. Couldn't justify spending the money on a good DSLR if I wasn't going to be "shooting for real". My focus has, for the last 10 years, been entirely on Dogs! The Training and Behaviour part, that is.

And the years rolled by as I immersed myself in the Learning of All-Things-Dog. All my darkroom equipment from days past became obsolete, film cameras collected dust and became obsolete...and the knowledge I seemed to have gathered - much about printing and darkroom techniques: also became obsolete.

But as months have turned into years and years translated into a Wonderful and Fulfilling career working with Dogs in a Training Capacity - it feels like it's now time to start merging my Two Passions; to pick up the camera again and Really make a commitment to shooting. I have no idea where this will take me or what will unfold. Just know it feels so right that I must put it down on paper. My Big Goal for 2013 is to "Shoot lots of Dogs" - yeah yeah that sounds bad for a "dog friendly trainer" - doesn't it - but maybe that's part of the reason I enjoy that juxtaposition?! 
Therefore, over the next few months I am going to be mixing blog posts about training with lots of posts with Photos of Dogs. I hope you'll enjoy the Visual Component that is to come! A new Year, a New Journey - I hope you'll check back often to see where this Road might go?!
I have no idea - but I'm excited!

random thoughts of the day...

Can't help but smile back when I look at this happy face displayed by Pinot. What a privilege to be owned by these happy and completely faithful characters we call our "Companion Dogs". Pinot is truly a side-kick dog...if all of society would allow for a constant "daemon" to be present - she would be it :-) (If you wonder what a daemon is - you can check it out here: the Golden Compass)

My other buddy, Maggio, is currently not feeling 100% after recently being diagnosed with pyelonephritis (inflammation of kidneys). You can see a bit of his his bare and shaved belly in this photo (as necessitated by the ultrasound to check him out last week).
He's being treated for it, but the poor guy's immune system is not completely happy about antibiotics. 
What a journey it is to live with someone suffering from allergies, and what a learning curve it's thrown me for. While saying all of that - it's been very educational and brought much positive with it: we've made some amazing contacts and perhaps foremost; for me, the journey has been a real first-hand eye opener into "Options" - that there are multiple ways to view healing and health. I've been personally blown away by what holistic medicine  - in the hands of a skilled practitioner - can offer. Through this journey, which started as a VERY frustrating wild-goose-chase looking to identify "allergies"...I have found a holistic vet I simply adore;  and my own views to the body, health and healing have really been impacted. 
And so the journey continues in different ways with each of these remarkable dogs...