Healthy Treats for dogs: Bananas & Peanut butter

In this post I'd like to share a simple tip on healthy dog treats.

About 1 year ago I had no idea about the importance of quality ingredients of snacks for pets and simply purchased dog treats labled as 'tasteful', 'yummy'  - these were made specifically for dogs and sold in pet shops. These are very inexpencive, have no essencial nutrients as a rule, and as a result I simply ended up having my little Zella having an acute nasty fungal ear infection, a visit to the vet, two week treatment of my poor dog and an unpleasantly high bill for the vet visits plus medicine expences.

Please do not purchase snacks or treats for your dogs if you cannot judge the quality of the ingredients of the product.

This will be the first healthy treat dog recipe I am going to share with you. It is very easy to make and requires only 3 ingredients:

1. A chewable dog toy with hollow space designed for treats.
2. Organic banana.
3. Organic peanut butter.

The dog toy I am using right now is our recent purchase. It is a large sized Orka jack toy by PetStages. It is made of very durable material, though it is really boucy and soft. Zella loves to play with it around the house even if there are no treats inside.

Any ripe bananas will do, but I am recommending organic ones because they are grown with no pesticides that may cause an allergic reaction.

Peanut butter must be free of additional salt or sugar - it is very important. I prefer the following brand that I normally buy (Arrowhead Mills), but for the photosession I had to use some other brand of the peanut butter that I got at a local 'health store'. Our household is crazy about peanut butter so we run empty pretty quickly and have to reorder all the time.

The pictures I took will demonstrate how simple it is to treat your dog with a healthy snack. Bananas are good for dogs as well, they are a very good source of B vitamins, magnesium and lots of other minerals and vitamins. Peanut butter is an excellent source of folic acid, vitamins A & E, zinc, iron, magnesium and more. Both peanuts and bananas are safe for dogs to eat but make sure you are not feeding them too much of it every single day. I give these treats to my dogs at least once a week, maybe twice. OK, now the pictures:

The ingredients:

Measuring one heaped teaspoon of peanut butter and 4-5 small pieces of banana per treat:

Stuffing the treat jack with bananas first and finishing with peanut butter.

Zella is looking forward to her treat:

Yummy!

Joy, our mastiff girl, is also enjoying her yummy healthy treat.

Very simple to make and good for dogs!