What type of treats?

[natlaw01]

I started my 5 year old Chihuahua on a raw diet a little over a week ago which he loves ...

I am trying to figure out what treats are best and how often. Since he is so little (6 pounds) I am using Primal. He gets 3 patties a day.

twice a week I am feeding him a bone at night (than he gets 1.5 patty for breakfast that day) ... he loves the bone.

For treats I have been giving him duck jerky and I started giving him bully sticks. I was reading somewhere they said bully sticks should only be given a few times a week as they are very rich on the system. Is this true?

What other treats do you give your raw dog? (oh, I also give him cheese ... he goes crazy for mozzerella and cheddar ... like me :)

[ReneeH]

duck jerky ... (oh, I also give him cheese ... he goes crazy for mozzerella and cheddar ... like me :)

These are not raw... or, are you making these out of nuts, which I'm not sure is good for a dog...??? :confused:

[Aleesha Sattva]

You do understand that we are talking about RAW pets here right? Please only share the raw portions of your dogs diet.

thanks,
Aleesha
Moderator

[cbowden]

First of all, most jerkeys and rawhide treats come from China, Brazil or other countries which use toxic chemicals to process - formaldehyde and others.

I make my own treats for my four rescued cockers. Ingredients vary as to what's on hand. If you've got leftover pulp from juicing it's a good base. Otherwise I start with organic rolled oats, mix in some ground flaxseed, shredded carrots or blueberries, raw green powder and then a binder of some kind.....water or raw juice. Enough to moisten the ingredients.

Drop spoonfuls on a cookie sheet as if you were making peanut butter cookies. Use a fork to press them into cookies. Freeze for 30 minutes or so. Pop them into a ziplock bag and keep frozen till treat time.

We call them Cocker Crack around here. They love them.

[LaniB]

What about raw dehydrated sweet potato treats?

I am ordering my dehydrator this weekend and plan to make some for my dogs once it arrives. There are commercially available sweet potato treats, but I don't know if they are technically raw.

As you may know, sweet potatoes are great for dogs and they really like the dehydrated treats as an alternative to rawhide (which definitely is not raw).

Some other veggies that are good for dogs and that they like a lot are carrots, apples, and green beans.

If you want to experiment with human foods you really do need to be careful though as some things (onions for example) are toxic to dogs.

The ASPCA's web page has a great list of foods you need to be particularly careful not to feed your dog:
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/people-foods.aspx

Hope this helps. :)

[siennagray]

My dogs love pumpkin- but I think for a dog your size shouldn't have more than a tablespoon. Also - coconut - I haven't seen anything if this is good or bad - so someone mention if they know anything. I let my girl play with the young coconut after I clean it out, and she tries to get the last bits out of it. Obviously this needs to be supervised.

Victoria Boutenko has a good green smoothie recipe for dogs, and my dogs really like it. I will come back later and edit with the recipe. It's really simple - like spinach, apple, nori and a fish oil capsule if you have one. Again, the amount your dog can have is based on weight.

ETA:
1 c. spinach
1 c. apple
1 c. water
2T olive oil
torn up nori
After blending, stir in the oil from 2 capsules fish oil.

A chihuahua again should probably only have a couple tablespoon fulls at a time, so you could freeze the extra in ice cubes, and have them be the perfect serving size.