Homemade Dog Biscuits, Healthy Simple ...

and named for our shelter acquisition!

It is hard to believe Milo has been a part of our household for 15 months.
How time flies!
We adopted him  the day before Halloween. The shelter provided the "costume"

Milo is an Australian cattle dog mix and is nine years old.  Even though Dave asks him quite often, Milo will not tell  how he lost his ear. It certainly has not affected his hearing!!! Nothing gets by him, even though our windows are insulated double-pane.

He is a well-muscled 60+ pounds and very strong. You wouldn't want to enter our home uninvited!

Surprisingly he is also a particular and very gentle eater. He doesn't like veggies, nor most fruits---not even the ones that are vet-okay-ed!

We rarely feed him any people food but on rare occasions we will give him slivers of left over meat (we take outside to give him) he will sit down and take the offering one bite at a time.

He doesn't like rawhide bones, and is not crazy about many commercial dog treats.

However,

he does love his "Milo Bites", a healthy recipe I have adapted (and simplified) from another.

1 egg
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 medium-sized banana, ripe and thinly sliced.
1 Tablespoon honey
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup wheat germ

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet or cover a baking sheet with lightly sprayed parchment paper.

Using an electric hand mixer, combine first four ingredients mixing until bananas are well "smooshed" up.

Add flours and wheat germ.

To roll out the treats, I cut open the sides of a gallon size zip lock bag,  lay it flat on my counter and dust it lightly with flour.

Actually, the zip lock bag thing is the way I roll out any dough --- rolls, biscuits, cookies, pie crusts, tortillas.  It is great, quick and makes very little mess. And because I am a creative cheapskate, I wash and reuse the cut open bag.  

I place part of dough on the “down side” of the bag, fold over the top portion to cover the dough, and roll to about 1/4 inch thickness.

I then turn the whole piece on to parchment.

And, repeat with remaining dough.

Once on the cookie sheet, I cut the whole thing all at once using a pizza cutter*.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes until  dry.

At the end of the baking time if  I don’t feel they are dry enough, I may bake them a while longer or I may just  dump them off the paper onto the cookie sheet, turn them over, break them apart and let them sit in the turned off oven. (the very first time I made them, some possibly thicker than others, were not dry enough and got a little "hairy"  in the jar. A little extra baking solved that without harming the taste.

Notes:  *You can use a cute doggy bone or other cookie cutter and cut them out one at a time but I am not only cheap with money, I am cheap and efficient (read lazy) with my time. Who cares what they look like---certainly not the dog!

(I even cut my biscuits in squares with the pizza cutter, rather than a round official biscuit cutter and to date, have not had any complaints! ) 

I usually double the recipe because I have a large cookie sheet and again, it is efficient time- and   energy-wise.

And finally. . .

               Another great thing 

about these doggy treats----               

they are not 

harmful to humans

 if ingested 

accidentally or on purpose! 

They even taste okay, or at least bearable. 

Have a happy and grateful day!

I am Simply, Gail