Home made dog biscuits

We were able to pick Leela up from the vets on the weekend. I can't believe how wrong the house felt without her there. While it will be a couple of weeks before she can walk on that leg again (I still get teary when I see her hopping around on three legs), and around 6 weeks for a full recovery, she has done really, really well and is healing a lot faster than the vet expected.

At the moment while she is still on her pain medication, she spends most of her time sleeping on her couch, (yes, she has her own couch. It's very rare that dog beds come big enough for Leela, and the couch was going to be thrown out, so we claimed it) and making puppy dog eyes at us to try and guilt us into giving her treats.

Leela enjoying her ugly grey couch

Treats are a problem. Leela is on an elimination diet...

With all the allergies and intolerance I have to food and chemicals, I suppose it is fitting that my dog has a list of allergens too. Currently she is eating a low allergenic prescription dog food. She cannot have meat, which rules out most commercial dog treats. Those that remain have wheat or dairy. So unfair.

I had purchased her a bag of Vegan Pet Peanut Woofers some time back, and she loved them, so I decided to try making a batch of my own, wheat free. I added psyllium husk in place of some of the flour since the post op medication she is on has made her a little constipated...

Peanut doggy biscuits

4 cups gluten free flour
2 cups of psyllium husk (or substitute with more flour)
1/2 cup of flax seeds
1/2 a cup of unsalted chunky peanut butter
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups of water.

Pre heat oven to 175 C.
Blend together all dry ingredients.
Add the peanut butter and rub into the dry ingredients to form crumbs.
Slowly add water and work together into a firm dough. If you are not using psyllium in the mix, you will probably only need 2 1/2 cups. If you are using psyllium you may need the rest of the water as the psyllium will soak the water up.

Either make balls of dough to form biscuits, and flatten them on the tray, or roll the dough and cut shapes. I rolled the dough and cut bone shapes. For christmas they will be cut in dog shapes so while we are eating gingerbread people, Leela and Katie can eat peanutbread dogs.

Bake the biscuits for around 30 - 40 minutes till they feel really firm but are not burnt. Turn the oven off and leave the biscuits in the oven to cool. My 2 doggy taste testers heartily endorse this product.

Mmmmm... peanutty

I also tried to make her some tofu jerky, but my oven doesn't do really do cool temperatures all that well, so they cooked too much and too fast, coming out as really dry crunchy tofu chips. Apparently they still tasted good though...

Doggy tofu chips

1 block of tofu
Marinade (I used a mix of cheatin gravy powder, some vegie stock, some gluten free worcestershire sauce and a little sugar)

Press the tofu between 2 plates for around 20 minutes to get excess water out. I put a bag of flour on the top plate for added pressure.
Cut tofu into strips. The tofu will shrink to nearly half the size, so don't cut too small.
Put the tofu into a container and pour over the marinade to cover. Seal the container and leave to marinade for a few hours. I left mine overnight.

Set your oven for as low as you can, aim for 120 C. Place a cake cooling rack on top of an oven tray or lammington tin. Place the tofu strips on top of the cake rack. This will ensure the tofu gets dried from both sides.
Leave to cook for at least 4 hours. Tofu should be dried out, and chewy.

The recipe above has worked for me using a different oven. The oven I have now though cooks all lower temperatures as 150 C so I ended up with super dry crunchy tofu chips.

Apologies for the crappier than usual photo quality.