Think Outside the Bag: Healthy Options for Treat Dispensers

I love food dispensing toys! Love, love, love 'em!  And I love how they can quietly occupy our 3 dogs.  The way I prepare them has changed over the years, to a much simpler healthier way.  Luckily the pet supply industry has learned that us dog and cat owners are happy to pay for all sorts of things that make our pets happier.  Companies have created dozens of treat dispensing toys in all sorts of shapes and sizes, allowing dogs to really use their brains on how to get food out of all the nooks and crannies.  Gone are the boring days of the classic kong , hello to Caterpillars, Biscuit Bouncers, and Goodie Bones !

All stuffed with Banana and frozen

Companies started cashing in on the treat dispensing toy craze and started producing treats specifically for these toys.  The problem is, most of this treats either look like cardboard (and are probably made with more ingredients than real cardboard is made of) or come in a can resembling spray cheese and no one wants to know what chemicals make up the can ingredients!

Peanut butter was the stuffable treat of choice for the longest time but for me, I didn't like my house smelling like peanut butter from all the dog licking.  Especially when my house smells of peanut butter from all the Breakfast Biscuits I make :)  I tried pumpkin but quickly realized that it makes orange spots on the carpet!  I often stuff them with the treats I make, but not many people have dehydrators so I came up with 3 great options that are extremely cheap, healthy and no special equipment needed.

Scrambled egg patties!

It should also be noted, the best way to utilize a food dispensing toy is to freeze them after stuffing.  This makes your dog work that much harder to get their goodies out!

1. Healthy Treat Option #1: Shredded chicken.  If you pick up a rotisserie chicken from the store and have some leftovers, keep them for the dogs!  Neither my husband or I like breast meat much, so I clean the chicken of whatever we didn't eat, discard the skin (very important!), and keep the leftovers to use in the dog's treat toys.  If there's a lot of leftover meat (like a huge Thanksgiving turkey) you can freeze some in a ziplock bag for future use. Fill the toy with the shredded chicken and freeze - your dogs will love it!
2. Healthy Treat Option #2: Bananas.  Yep, as simple as bananas!  These work best when they are still fully yellow and very firm. The toys that work best for these are those with larger openings like the classic kong, or the larger openings on the Barnacles.  Just slide a chunk of banana right in and freeze.  Our dogs are big fans of the frozen banana!
3. Healthy Treat Option #3: Scrambled egg.  We have a LOT of eggs these days between the chickens and ducks. Though I do occasionally use the duck eggs for baking, they primarily go towards our dog's food.  I will scramble up a few dozen duck eggs at a time and freeze them for the dog's food.  For easy container storage, I use silicone molds to cook the scrambled eggs as 'patties', which also makes them easy to stuff into their toys.  You don't need a silicone mold though, just scramble them into large enough pieces so they don't easily fall out of the toy.  Again, freeze after filling with egg.

There you go, 3 simple and healthy ways to fill your dog's treat dispensing toys.  I personally have 6 toys, 2 for each dog, so that I always have some ready in the freezer :)

Visit the links below to go straight to the toys I recommend!