Do you buy or make treats for your pets?

Hi All,
For those of you with pets...

Do you buy treats for them? How often? How much do you spend?

Do you make treats for them? How often? What recipe do you use?

Yes, I buy treats for the dog. I buy a brand called Canine Carry Outs.  These soft treats are just a little over $1.00.

Dear hubby buys treats for the cat.  The brand he buys is called Temptations and he buys the value pack online.

Treats are good way to train animals.

We use them as rewards for good behavior.

I also make treats.  Popcorn, doggie cookies, etc.

I’m a big one for using treats. Yeah, they get their basic diet, but tiny treats are often handed out sporadically during the day. = I have no special time schedule which results in our pets keeping a casual eye on us much of the time. Ya never know when a special treat might be in offer.

Dog treats….
…cooked carrots
…cooked green beans
…banana slices
…avocado slices
…cooked slices from slaughter, such as offal, skin, and such
…assorted tidbits of leftovers

Cat treats—— whoa, cats are far more discriminating than dogs. So not any old thing will do. Plus, cats are individualistic. What one cat sees as a special treat, the other cats might think is only suitable for compost.
…cast off bits of fish
…assorted slaughter waste, especially chicken. Most seem to like the chicken.
….Temptations !  I haven’t had a cat turn them down, but there’s a hidden secret in Temptations. There is an appetite "enhancer", meaning that the cat acquires an impulse to eat them. It works so good that I’ve seen cats with stomatitis eat Temptations when they couldn’t tolerate anything else. The urge  to eat them is strong. We currently have a few cats with stomatitis, plus a few ancient cats (over 17 years old) that get Temptations daily due to their difficulty eating food.

All my pet treats are cooked. In the past I’ve treated far too many pets with illnesses stemming from raw meats, mostly commercial foods. I am aware that my farm cats get internal parasites (worms) from eating raw vermin. And could get avian flu, rat-lung, or even toxo, so the rule on my own farm is that everything gets cooked.

While I prefer not to purchase things I can make myself (or trade for), hubby does make an exception for Temptations.

In good weather, we dehydrate liver. We cut it up for treats. Yes, we have learned, in this case, to use the dehydrator outside.  There can be an aroma.

Matt McSpadden wrote:For those of you with pets...

Do you buy treats for them? How often? How much do you spend?

We've got two dogs -yes, most weeks spending probably too much!

Do you make treats for them? How often? What recipe do you use?

Both dogs like to share the vegetable scraps - carrot bits and Swede (rutrabaga) offcuts are favourites. They also love the ribs of kale leaves and the stems of broccoli, not so much cauliflower.

Most of the treats we buy are biscuits, but my labrador has had a dodgy tummy this last week or so, (getting better now), so he's been on home made biscuit treats as we've been avoiding wheat - Arrowroot, beef dripping, with an egg, a little baking powder, mixed to a batter and dripped into tart trays and baked about 15 minutes. He seems to like them just as well as the bought biscuits

I buy treats for my dog, I'm a bit guilty of perhaps being a little to eager to purchase her different things.

The newest fun treat has been dried wolffish skin for her to chew on.

The wife is not a fan of the odor after the dog has chewed on it for a while. The dog wholeheartedly approves however.

Most of our flock of 5 LGDs is in various stages of disrepair, due to age/injury. Lil'B makes doggie cookies using ground oatmeal/peanut butter/bit of bacon grease/salmon oil, often some other flour, lentil for example. She then adds the supplements we rotate them all on. Recovery EQ, turmeric, collagen, probiotics.
They get similar supplementation in their bowls in addition to yogurt for all and meloxicam for the two that take it.

We also buy Jay's Big Bites, dry aged liver treats with glucosamine and MSM. Beksi, the smart LGD, will not leave you alone if she smells them in your jacket pocket, she is relentless. They all love them and the attention that goes along when we hand them out on our family walks.

Su Ba wrote:Dog treats….
…cooked carrots
…cooked green beans  

My dog would be happy to get these as food is always on her mind.  The only problem with those is they are not treats, inside the are called dinner ...

We are another Temptations household. Our cat has a very delicate stomach and while we have her stable, we don't mess around with her food. She will get small bits of pure cooked chicken/turkey but that's it for human food.

I do grow her catmint, cat grass and spider plants. She can get a bit pushy in the summer, if I come in from the garden and don't  give her a fresh leaf of catmint!