Week 14 of the 52s...Dog Biscuits

Because the weather has been pretty atrocious the past few days, I decided to find something I could do at home for the 52s this week.  Course, I was having a hard time thinking of just what that something was going to be...until I realized I was nearing the bottom of the dog treat container.

Ozzy has a really dicey stomach, so I've been buying these hypoallergenic cookies at the vet's for a few years now.  They aren't cheap, but I can also give them to Max as he will eat anything and doesn't care if the treats taste like hay smells.

My sister gave me this recipe she uses for her dog treats, which has no wheat, salt, sugar; basically just a plain, very organic and healthy biscuit.

The mix has quinoa, oatmeal, sweet potato, banana and a dash of vegetable oil.  Seems pretty easy to me, though the dough is sticky and mushy and very hard to dollop by the teaspoonful onto the cookie sheets.  Still, I manage.  And though it was a messy business, I get 48 doggy bite-sized treats.

After I took the shot above, I remembered that I was supposed to flatten each cookie so when they cooked they would end up like thin little disks.  Yeah, right.  The dough is so wet and gooey, it's just a joke trying to squish them flat, but eventually I get them in the oven.

Where they are supposed to cook for an hour and get hard and crunchy...

Don't they look all hard and crunchy?  Yep, I thought so too.  I put them on the rack to cool though wondered if they should feel like...vulcanized rubber.  Maybe they harden once they're fully cooled?

I gave the first piece to Max.  He will seriously eat anything put in front of him.  I think that's how he survived whilst on the lam.  He sniffed, he nudged with his nose, he sniffed...

Then he turned his head, and after I took this photo, he got up and walked away, leaving the treat on the floor.  In dog language I'm pretty sure he was muttering WTF? as he went.

Next I tried Ozzy.  He rarely gets anything more exotic than those hypoallergenic things from the vet, so I thought he would really dig these.  Right.  I tore a disk into several smaller pieces--and I mean tore.  It was like shoe leather--and laid them on the floor.  Ozzy sniffed, nudged, sniffed, then tried to eat a piece and honestly, it was painful to watch.

If you look close, you can see the treat is stuck in his teeth like a gummy bear.  He couldn't chew, so he's sort of licking and drooling and flaying as he tries to eat the damned thing.  Finally he chokes it down just about the time I'm considering the Heimlich, then he walks away in disgust leaving the rest of the cookies on the floor. 

An hour later he throws up all over the carpet.

So, okay, this week was an epic fail, at least in terms of having fun, but then it's not very realistic to think every adventure can be fun.  Life just doesn't work that way.  What I did do was step out of the box and try something new.  Whether it worked or failed is irrelevant, the point is, I did it.

And the treats?  Lobbed down the mountainside.  Maybe the birds will enjoy them.  Or better yet, they could build really great, nearly indestructible nests...rubber is pretty durable.