Who can resist the big brown eyes of a Border Collie as it waits for a dog treat. Dog treats are part of everyday use to reward your dog in training or to show it your love. The problem with dog treats can be that most people forget to factor them into to the total food intake for the day.
Processed, commercial dog treats are high in fat, preservatives, and other things. If you give your dog too many, they can upset your Border Collie’s tummy, cause diarrhea, skin allergies, and obesity. Not really what we had in mind in terms of rewarding our dogs.
The big thing to remember is that your Border Collie gets all the nutrition it needs from its daily food and that dog treats and table scraps are additional. The best way to manage using dog treats is to balance it out with the calories in your dog’s daily diet....
These days there are many great low fat, all natural dog treats available on the market. Things like dried liver, kangaroo, beef, turkey, chicken, and pork products. These are all natural dog treats with no additives, preservatives, most have almost no fat content, they are tasty, nutritious, and clean your Border Collie’s teeth.
The best training dog treats are dried liver. They break up into very small pieces and have almost no impact on your dog’s diet.
Not all training is about rewarding with food. Once your dog understands what you want from it, alternate the way you reward. Sometimes use a dog treat, always say good dog, give it a pat, or throw a ball as a reward. Eventually your Border Collie will accept all positive things from you as a reward and the need food dog treats is reduced.
Here are some low fat, yummy dog treats you can make for your Border Collie at home.
These are excellent in summer and are low fat and delicious.
Ingredients
1 cup water
1 chick or beef stock cube
small pieces of chicken or beef
Method
Dissolve the stock cube in the water. You can either pour the liquid into ice cube trays and add a piece of meat to each one, or pour it into an ice-cream container, scatter in the meat and put in the freezer until frozen.
These are great biscuits to give your dog as a treat, just because you love it.
Ingredients
2 teaspoons dry yeast
½ cup lukewarm water
bunch of parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely diced garlic
1 ½ cups chicken stock
3 tablespoons honey
1 egg
5 to 6 cups wholemeal flour
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a large bowl. Stir in the stock, parsley, egg, honey, and garlic.
Gradually add the flour until it forms a stiff dough.
Turn it on to a floured surface and knead until smooth. Shape the dough into a ball and roll out until it is about 6 mm thick and cut into biscuits. Roll up the scraps and roll it out again and cut out more biscuits.
Transfer the biscuits to ungreased baking trays about 6 mm apart and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and turn them over and bake for another 15 minutes, or until lightly browned on both sides. Turn off the oven and leave them to cool in there overnight to make the biscuits crunchier.
These are quick and easy to make, and can be kept in the freezer.
Elkana Border Collies