What is a safe natural, no additives or colourings treat to offer Alfie? 
Every night he has a rawhide bone from wilkos or a pigs ear or some paddywack.  I know that these have some in them so would like to know what to feed him with, also does any one give bullspizzles??
thank you colette

Hi,

My girl likes carrot as a treat - you could try that or Ciara has a frozen kong at bedtime, either with natural yogurt and a few of her biscuits or bit of chopped liver mixed in, or raw mince frozen.  There is also the kong activity ball which has slots down the side that you can put food into - bits of liver, mince, carrot, his normal food if you feed dry food, it takes a while for them to work at getting the treats out and makes it a bit more of a challenge than just giving them something that is gone in 2 seconds. HTH.

Karen

>also does any one give bullspizzles??<

I do,my dogs go nuts for them.

As for the treats,i have a dehydrater and make all my own treats :) You can put anything in them,i do chicken breast,steak,liver,tripe,sardines,sweet potatoes etc.

>Dehydrater<

Oooh Now I like the sound of that!! never thought of that before,clever!! will you PM me some info sara...pleeeease :D

also, what are Bullspizzles
Sounds like something from a Roald Dahl book ;) :D

Ditto HG's Post :)

Can you PM me with details of the dehydrater too, please?

And what on earth is a bullspizzle

>what on earth is a bullspizzle

The p*nis of a bull. :)

Just to let anyone know who is interested there are dehydrators for sale on e-bay
Jane

Yeah, I want to know what a dehydrator is as well please!

Gas mark 1/2?  Well thats how I do my herbs, dried fruit etc :)

I think you can buy dehydraters from any big department store,in the small electrical section,they literally suck the moisture out of the food you put in so youre left dry treats,liver treats/jerky are probably the best example.I got mine as a gift from my ex,best pressie i ever got!

Mine is pretty old and only has a couple of racks,i think the newer versions have 3 or 4 racks.You just slice up what you want to dehydrate bung it in and away you go,Mine takes houuuurs! But its well worth it and my dogs love everything i make in it,especially chicken breasts and sweet potatoes.Like i said you can dehydrate pretty much ANYTHING you want and you know exactly whats in them,or more to the point whats Not in them,alot of treats nowadays have nasty chemical preservatives in them :(

I rather like chemical preservatives, they preserve the vitamins in excellent condition I don't know what is nasty about that :).  Probably not so important with treats though.

A UK one,expensive though

[link]http://www.bargainjuicers.com/bargainjuicerslequipdehy.htm[/link]

I can set up a cottage industry with that one!!!??
Its a beheamoth!!! (big!)
edited to say: Ive really got to stop using words I cant spell!

Blimming heck, do they come any cheaper than that!?!? 

Yes, Gas mark 1/2 :D

:D *Guffaw!* :D

;)

I've tried gas mark 1/2 and it's very smelly!!!  I was hoping the dehydrator wouldn't smell - sara does it smell??

Sara mentions further down the thread that the cheaper type don't have a filter but I expect you would get one for your money with the beheamoth :)

Never mind the dogs, I want some dehydrated sweet potato! It sounds yummy and healthy too. :)

Great thanks for that sara!! appreciate your leg work there :)
Point taken Isabel! However for me my interest lies with drying out liver (and I hate the smell :( ) so the oven's a no no.... its about the best 'Smelly' treat I can find to help me illicit interest when Storm is 'at school' on his training sessions...and trying to pull an ADS moment ;)
    Still trying to figure a good containment tho' I have a jacket I can only wear for training and it lives in the Barn as it stinks to high heaven after training (or more likely me forgetting to empty pockets..bleeeeugh!!)

Blimey! I had to edit the above post 50 times,my links kept spazzing out! I posted a link to an American site first,then found that one,then deleted the US link and it kept stuffing up! Apologies to anyone who got confused tryinmg to read it :o

Better check with Sara if they filter the smell before you fork out for your beheamoth :)

lol, I suspect it will be housed in the outhouses or barn along with all the other "Great devices" and contraptions we've bought... the rowing machine,the breadmaker..et al ! :rolleyes: :D

:D  My "best device" is my exercise bike.  It sits in my living room.  I can then do my ironing in front of Coronation Street and use the handlebars to hang the shirts on plus there is a very nice flat area between saddle pole and handle bar pole that holds a glass of wine thus saving it from being precariously balanced on the ironing board or any danger of warming my chilled white too quickly by being too close to the iron, sorted :D

ROFL Isabel!

Wish I'd bought an exercise bike instead of a treadmill.  The treadmill is good for nothing - except treading, of course.

Mmmmmm can you not set it slow enough to be like a Lazy Susan running an array of snacks past your chair.  Any uneaten by you can plop onto the floor at the end for the dogs.
Exercising the brain is much heathier than the body.  Nobody ever suffered a heart attack doing that :p

>Mmmmmm can you not set it slow enough to be like a Lazy Susan running an array of snacks past your chair.  Any uneaten by you can plop onto the floor at the end for the dogs. Exercising the brain is much heathier than the body.  Nobody ever suffered a heart attack doing that 

LMAO!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D

What a creative idea for my next party!    If the guests don't eat the snacks quickly enough I'll just station my dogs at the end of the treadmill.  I'm sure they will be happy to eat them before the extra snacks end up on the floor.  :-)

>Better check with Sara if they filter the smell<

Mine doesnt,althought he only things that smelled bad were the fish and tripe,all the other stuff doesnt smell at all.  It wouldnt surprise me if that space age one i posted the link to has some kind of air filter or something like that.

>Just to let anyone know who is interested there are dehydrators for sale on e-bay <

Jane brilliant! I didnt think of that :o

For me,my dehy. is the most used thing in my kitchen,for anyone thinking of getting one IMHO they are so worth it :) A couple of shelves do me fine,that one with 20 shelves would make a years worth of treats in one go!

Isabel how long do you have to keep your stuff in the oven for before its dry? Have you ever done meat?

We use Natures Menu treats :)  PAH sell some 100% natural rawhide bones/chews.  They also sell natural Knuckle Bones :)  Our little Sheltie girl loves rawhide chews but I found that the natural one's gave her the runs so she now has the not-so-natural ones :rolleyes:

I bought some dried fish skins :D :D I'm now my dogs favourite person :) :)  

There's a company does them in the uk :)

burns and natures menu do 'natural' treats, i heard someone bakes the skin of fish that they eat- and break em up as treats.

I found Burns are the cheapest for the fish skins but you have to spend £25 on their site to get free delivery so if you don't feed their food and don't have a supplier near you then it could get expensive.

I do sardines for treats for mine. 2 tins in oil and 2 tins in tomato sauce in the oven until they dry out, doesn't take long, they love them. They also get them straight out of the tins on occasions. I have also sliced thin strips of chicken and that goes down well, someone I train with uses liver but I find that too much of that gives my dogs dire rear. Lots of people do liver cake or sardine cake but I can never remember the recipe. I think it is flour, liver/sardines, water, egg and garlic but I don't know the proportions.

sardine cake:
large tin of sardines/pilchards in tomatoe sauce
5 eggs
put in to magimix untill all mixed. add some flour to make it cake consituancy (sp)
put into an ice cream tub and cook in microwave for 10mins.
cut into quarters and put back into microwave for 5mins until middle is not gooey.
then cut into small pieces.
dogs love it and makes a lot for not much money

thankyou very much for that, I am going to give that a go this week. I have been told that sometimes it explodes in the microwave has that ever happened to you?

no not happened to me. - if you are worried then do it in smaller batches - it also helps the middle cook better aswell.

You can also do it in the oven at about 180 or gas mark 6 for about 20 minutes. Do it in a cake tin or something similar and check it like you would a cake - stick a knife in the middle and when it comes out clean, the cake is done.

Instead of sardines, you can blitz up about a pound of liver, 2 eggs and a little dried or fresh garlic. Mix in flour until you get a 'dropping consistency' like a cake mix. You can use plain or self raising flour depending on the texture you want.

Also I got some fish skins from Manchester dog show - I think the company are called fish4dogs and if you google it you should find them. They were reasonably priced and you get loads in a 100g packet as they are so light.

I get bags of bolied lamb's oseophagus' (sp?) ie throats which I cut up and freeze.  They are tubes so make little ring treats which are smelly and get the dog's attention!  Totally natural too!

lol..sounds like Calamaris for dogs :D
The talk of dried fish skins reminds me of 'Har Fiskur' in Iceland (I spend a lot of time there) *Pah! Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeugh!!* and they all eat it like a packet of crisps.Never ever agree to bring it back for friends..I have had to throw away many a good Samsonite...It REEKS
   Tho' it is not as bad as the christmas delicacy of 'petrified Shark'..
(And I'm not talking 'scared'...its shark thats been buried for months then dug up..the stench is unreal like amonia!)
YYYYYYYYuk!