As I am sitting here writing he is sleeping beside me and is curled up with one of his "rags." Toys aren't truly loved until they are destroyed. He took the concept from the book The Velveteen Rabbit to an extreme. His day starts with either an early am run with one of us or a game of fetch at the dog park and this happens rain or shine. At lunch time he visits the park again for either a game of fetch or a walk in the woods which in the warmer (by Kona standards) months probably includes a swim too. In the evening after work if we didn't run in the morning he joins one of us for our run or he goes back to the dog park. He eats at least three times a day because if we eat lunch why shouldn't he? He joins us every time we go mountain biking, trail running, hiking, or just a walk in the woods. He's bagged a 4,000 footer, been sailing, been kayaking, gone camping, traveled to 6 states, and been on non-camping vacations.
He is a high energy dog that has the sweetest disposition and loves being outdoors. He loves to run, loves to play fetch, and loves to eat. His love of eating unfortunately can lead to an extremely stinky butt. We still aren't really sure what foods he doesn't tolerate but after a few months and several different brands of dog foods and homemade food we know what he can eat!
After a few months of transitioning him to new foods we realized we were never going to solve this problem if we left him on foods that didn't agree with him. So off I went to do some research. I ended up making his food for him for a little over a month to help clear his system and then so we could tell if the new food we were transitioning him to was actually okay for him.
I did make him two different varieties of dog food at first. One was oatmeal, scrambled eggs, carrots, peas, boiled apples, and boiled pears. He loved it and gobbled it up! The second was boiled sweet potatoes which I mashed, boiled chicken, string beans, cauliflower, and broccoli. He loved and gobbled that one up too! I made a third one with some of the leftover ingredients I had. It was the mashed up sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, and chicken. I have to say, not only did he love it but it was easy to make in a huge batch, portion, and freeze. I still have a few meals in the freezer for him as a special treat or for when we need them.
I have a friend who also has a dog with food issues and she was kind enough to share one of her recipes for dog treats. I took her recipes, made a few minor changes, and whipped up some yummy treats that Kona loved! The of course has sweet potatoes and peanut butter in them, two of his favorite things! The treats that he didn't overly love was the sweet potato jerky, I though he would really enjoy it but he would only eat it if there was another dog also eating a piece of the jerky. Oh well, the other ones were easier to make anyways.
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| The start of homemade dog food to portion and freeze |
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| Sweet potato slices ready to be dehydrated |
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| Dog treat mixture |
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| Dog treat mixture getting rolled out |
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| Dinos and bones, oh no! |
Dog Treats
1 cup of diced sweet potato
1 cup of oat flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup of super chunky peanut butter
1 egg
Put the sweet potato, peanut butter, and egg in the blender and blend until sweet potato is chopped up and ingredients are mixed. Remove from blender and add in oat flour and oats. I mixed and then rolled to cut, I like rolling them and either cut into shapes or cut into squares/rectangles so they are uniform and bake evenly.
Bake at 300 degrees for 40-45 minutes, turning them over halfway through.
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