Homemade puppy treat with just one ingredient & how to spot those crappy ones

Since I have got my puppy Mochi, I have been continuously searching for healthy training treats. Because I need to constantly reward any good behavior that Mochi displays during this house training phrase.

What I find on the market usually falls into one of these two categories.

1- affordable but with doubtful ingredients

I am lucky enough to have a local pet shop near me and the owner of the shop is very knowledgeable and he doesn’t sell anything that he doesn’t approve of. He told me that when you see the word “derivatives” from the ingredient list, it means the meat or veg that it’s indicating is not real. Be it “chicken derivatives” or “derivatives of vegetable origin”. It could be bones, peel, or shell of any kind. Using the word derivatives allow pet food manufacturers to avoid telling you what that ingredients really is. One thing for sure , is that it’s not going to be anything good. The only good thing? They are inexpensive.

2 – healthy but expensive

This type of pet treats or food are exactly the opposite of type 1. They would list exactly what ingredients they are using. For examples, chicken, lamb, salmon, venison, etc. Many of them would even tell you how much in percentage, such as “contains at least 30% chicken”. These are definitely the sign of well made dog food or treats. With popular brand names like Orijen, Canagan, Lili’s kitchen, etc. The only down side? The price. It could be double, or even more than the price of those type 1’s.

So I am trying to find recipe to make my own healthy puppy treats. This one is super easy and requires no skills at all. Even you can’t cook or bake. You can definitely succeed in this recipe, because you will only need one ingredient – Salmon.

Just get a small piece of salmon from the market. What I do is when I plan to have salmon for dinner that day I buy a bigger piece and I cut out a small portion to make this treat.

All you need to do is cut the fillet into thin slices. The thinner it is the faster it gets dehydrated. Just spray some cooking spray on a baking sheet, and place the little pieces on there with space in between. (I am using aluminium foil this time because I ran out of baking sheet and it works just fine.)

Here, I am using the oven with low setting ( at 90 degree Celsius ) to dehydrate the salmon pieces. You can use a dehydrator, which is even more effective. Then I just leave it there for 4-6 hours and checking it every 60 mins or so to make sure that it is doing fine.

Once the pieces are moisture free then it’s done.