DIY Christmas Ornament Dog Treats without a Plunger Cutter

We've been sharing lots of different holiday treats in our barkmas bonanza this year, including cute Christmas stamped design plunger treats like our gingerbreads, carob and peanut butter treats, and spicy apple treats, but we though we'd throw in a bonus post hot on the heels of our last plunger treat post of the year for those of you who'd love to make a patterned treat but can't get your hands on a set of Christmas plunger cookie cutters.

{RECIPE} Apple Cinnamon Christmas Dog Treats

Easy DIY Howliday Treat Bauble Christmas Ornaments

These howliday dog treat ornaments are easy to make and they're pawesome inexpensive little gifts for furfriends, takeway gifts for holiday pawty guests, or a little take along pressie for the furbabies of your host/hostess.

{RECIPE} Peanut Butter and Carob Christmas Dog Treats

"Chocolate" and peanut butter? Doggone irresistible! These treats swap the chocolate for dog-friendly carob as a delicious adaptation of our smooth roll-and-cut peanut butter recipe. This dough handles well for roll-and-cut treats, but if you're looking for a quick and easy alternative, you can use fork flattened balls or go for our simple no-rolling treat method.

{RECIPE} Naturally Green Christmas Tree Dog Treats

These miniature Christmas tree dog treats are naturally green bite-sized bits of Christmas goodness, made using an adaptation of our leafy green dog treat dough and were perfect with my miniature Christmas tree cookie cutter - bite-sized for my boys.   For a slightly richer and darker green colour, I used a combination of both kale and wheatgrass. I also experimented with low-fat coconut milk powder in lieu of low-fat diary milk powder.  It had a little more impact on the liquid-to-flour than my usual low-fat dairy milk powder (slightly less flour required for a cohesive dough), but nothing significant and it added a great scent to the mix.  Dairy is still my go-to for baking, but if you're dog is lactose sensitive or you're just looking for a change, it's definitely a potential substitution option.  

{RECIPE} Peanut Butter and Molasses Christmas Dog Treats

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas, and these treats smell almost good enough to temp a few human taste-testers. A little splash of blackstrap molasses and sprinkle of spice jazzes up our smooth roll-and-cut peanut butter recipe with a gingerbread-inspired holiday boost of scent and flavour. That dough works so well for simulating a cookie-dough texture that I wanted to play with it for my new Christmas plunger-cutters (I couldn't resist buying them...) and it worked very nicely! Since we were making gingerbread treats, I used only the gingerbread person plunger from the set and creating some matching gingerbread houses.  Here's how they were made. 

{RECIPE} Fabulously Fishy Salmon and Oat Dog Treats

These fabulously fishy treats are so stinky doggone droolworthy. Smelly equals irresistible to our boys! These treats were baked using the ready-to-mix dry ingredients pictured in our easy DIY Dog Treat Jar, but are equally pawesome made straight up. Definitely a hit with our dogs! They may not be as pretty as some of the holiday treats we have in our line up for you in our pre-Christmas bonanza this year, but dogs are all about the smell/taste and this is a sure to please recipe that any dog on the nice list would love to receive from Santa Paws and his helpers.

DIY Dog Treat Jar {Guest Post} + Treat Jar Tips and Freebies!

{RECIPE} Bacon Bone Dog Treats with Pumpkin and Herbs

It is a rare thing for my poor deprived dogs that there would be bacon cooking in the house (I'm a vegetarian), so when there was bacon for one of my husband's grilling recipes, how could I not take a little and make a few special dog treats? Oli was still very vision-impaired in his cataract surgery recovery, but he could definitely smell the doggone delicious scents of sizzling bacon, baking treats, and...sniff sniff sniff....taste testing!

How to Make Pumpkin Pie Thanksgiving Dog Treats

If playful puppies picked a piece of pumpkin pie, where the piece of pumpkin pie that playful puppies picked?  In their tummy, of course! :) We're popping in with a bonus post this week especially for our American furfriends who will be celebrating Thanksgiving next week and for lovers of pie in general. Mmmm...pie.  

{RECIPE} Tasty Turkey and Turmeric Meatball Dog Treats

Tasty turkey? Yes, please! We may not have a Thanksgiving holiday feast to plan in our part of the world, but any time of year can be turkey time. It's a dog's life indeed!  These simple turkey meatballs get a big boost of fragrance and flavour as well as added healthy goodness from their savoury seasonings.

{RECIPE} Smooth Roll-and-Cut Peanut Butter Dog Treats

Did you know that November is Peanut Butter Lovers Month? Oh yeah...we LOVE our peanut butter! In honour of peanut butter lovers everywhere and in preparation for some fun variations on this base recipe used in our upcoming holiday posts, we're sharing our smooth roll-and-cut peanut butter dog treat dough. Yummy!

{RECIPE} Turmeric Latte Golden Milk Gummy Dog Treats

Both of our dogs have turmeric regularly, both in some of their homemade treats and sprinkled directly onto their food.  Sometimes this is sprinkle a coconut oil mixture (see this guest post for how to make Golden Powder doggy sprinkles) but often I just sprinkle a little powder straight-up onto their food.  We give a number of different healthy add-ins this way to keep things interesting with variety, but turmeric is a favourite of both dogs for smell/taste and us for its potential health benefits.  When Oli was heading into cataract surgery, I wasn't sure whether sprinkling quick-to-stain turmeric on his meals would be a good idea given we anticipated significantly impaired vision during healing. Oli is a very messy eater at the best of times (cleaning tips here) and I could imagine things getting rather nasty in a hurry: blind eating, stainy turmeric, white fur, tender face, Elizabethan collar...uh-oh... I decided to whip up a batch of extra potent turmeric gummies for his recovery. This an adaptation of our lightly seasoned and simpler turmeric gummy recipe, as shown in our Golden Gummy Stars, and I think it's a new gummy favourite! Full of healthy ingredients, doggone delicious scents/flavours, and low-mess goodness. Yay!

Mummy Bone Homemade Halloween Dog Treats

These mummies are a fun way to decorate a special batch of  Halloween dog treats. You can use the same technique for human cookies too...just make sure your chosen recipes and flavours are human-friendly. :)  Since these treats are decorated without doggy icing, the finished treats look fancy but are still "plain" enough to be freezer-friendly and/or hold up well during handling, which makes them great for gifting to your favourite furfriends.  Doggy bag anyone?  My mummy munching defenders were more than happy to save me from these little monsters:

{RECIPE} Pumpkin (Puppy Pupkin) Spice Dog Treats

It is springtime here, but our social media is all a-flutter with our northern pals and their pumpkin spice EVERYTHING. We're big pumpkin fans in any season, and I have to say that these tasty treats smell downright divine.  In honour of our Canadian fur-friends who will be celebrating Thanksgiving next weekend and autumn-loving pups everywhere, here's how we made these all-natural dog-friendly pumpkin (puptastic pupkin!) spice leaf treats.

{RECIPE} "Lamburger" Meatball Dog Treats with Rosemary

Did somebody say lamb??? Cue the doggy drool! These bite-sized mini-meatballs are a snap to make and can easily be frozen to defrost for individual tasty treats at anytime. Yum!  Lamb is commonly available here in New Zealand, and my dogs are wild about it; however, you can easily substitute another lean ground meat to make these meatballs, if you (or your dog) prefer. 

First Day of Spring! All Natural Green Gummy Dog Treats

{RECIPE} Naturally Golden Turmeric Star Dog Treats

Turmeric powder gives these sour cream and chicken treats a gorgeous all-natural golden colour (perfect for stars) and adds some doggone great smell/taste to the mix as well. My dogs love turmeric (cue the drool) which make me pretty happy too since it's full of healthy goodness - especially for our ageing senior.  

{RECIPE} Golden Milk Puppy Popsicle Frozen Dog Treats

It is more winter blankie than ice pop weather in our part of the world right now, but I've had this post pre-prepped and waiting to share with our summer friends for a cool treat idea.  These frozen treats combine the key elements of Golden Milk (without the human sweeteners) into a frosty ice pop.  By layering the treats, the milky top/bottom buffers the turmeric tinted center for easier (less messy) handling and feeding; however, it's super simple to adapt and combine all of the ingredients instead of a three-part layered process if you prefer.

How to Make Stamped American Flag Dog Treats