Treats

When training your dog or attending a dog training course, nothing works better at than a home-made liver treat.

Since most people purchase florescent pink pretend food that smells like chemicals as treats, we arrive to all of my classes armed with home-made yummy morsels.

Giving your dog home-made treats is not spoiling it or giving it ‘human food’. I doubt any human would want to eat a piece of baked, dehydrated chicken liver, so it can’t technically be considered human food.

Knowing that these treats are irresistible to dogs, I thought I would share my favorite, well my dogs favorite, recipe to all.

José’s chicken cluster,
(named them after a student who took my original recipe and modified it just a touch.)

Handling chicken liver is a bit like handling Jell-O, and it ain’t pretty.
Pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees.
Lightly grease a cookie sheet and set aside.
Take approximately 500 grams of raw chicken livers.
Cut them into small chunks about 1.5 centimetres in size.
Place them in a large mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix together; 1 teaspoon of powdered garlic, a pinch of salt and 1 cup of flour.
Pour flour mixture into the bowl containing the liver and stir until the liver is completely dusted with the flour mixture.
Now pick the liver chunks out of the bowl, give them a little shake and place them, individually, on the cookie sheet about 1 centimetre apart.
Place the cookie sheet in the pre-heated oven and cook for one hour at 300 degrees. If your oven is really hot, turn the temperature down a few degrees.

The livers should come out of the oven a little crunchy on the outside, but softer in the middle. Once cooled, place the treats in an open container in the refrigerator. If you cover the liver treats they will go bad, but if you leave the lid off, they will dehydrate further but retain the tasty liver flavor Beef, lamb, turkey or pork liver can be substituted, if there are not any chicken livers available at the grocer or butcher.

Lou’s Turkey Jerky

In a large mixing bowl stir together 1.5 cup Worcestershire, a tablespoon of soy sauce, 2 cloves of crushed garlic and a teaspoon of brown sugar.
Mix until the sugar is dissolved.
Take one large turkey thigh (500 g) and cut into thin strips approximately 1.5 centimetre in width.
Place the strips in the mixture, cover and refrigerate over night.
The next day, pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees
Individually place the turkey strips on a lightly greased cookie sheet Place in the oven and turn down the heat to 300 degrees
Let cook for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and turn strips over
Cook for another 15 minutes or until the strips become somewhat leathery
Remove from the oven and let cool on the sheetsOnce cooled, place in the refrigerator in an open container.
Chicken, beef or lamb can be substituted for turkey

Simple liver bits

Take one tub of beef liver (available at all grocery stores)
Remove the strips of liver and place them on a lightly greased cookie sheet
Place sheet in a 325 degree pre-heated oven
Cook for approximately 25 minutes, turn and cook for another 10 minutes
Once cooked and looks like dried leather remove from oven an let cool
Once cool, cut liver
Place cut liver in the refrigerator in an open container
Lamb or pork can be substituted for beef