Petal is in looooove with this month’s goodie from Chewy.com! She got to try some of Primal’s fancy meat treats for the first time and we were both very pleased with them. Here’s what I liked about them: They’re a … Continue reading
“I deserve a delicious treat for this.”
All of Petal’s hard work modeling for Valentine’s makes her deserving of a great treat, don’t you think? Petal certainly thinks so and I do too. One of her favorite treats is a KONG stuffed with yummy stuff. She loves to have a banana frozen in her KONG with a little bit of peanut butter. She loves to have yogurt, veggies, fruits, her regular meals and anything else I can think of in her KONG.
Last week I made her a KONG with the following:
I threw 4 ounces (somewhere around 350 calories worth (I worked it into Petal’s daily meal allowance, you may want to do the same)) of cooked organic white buckwheat into a bowl with 1 banana, about 3 or 4 cut up strawberries and a few raspberries. I mixed and mashed it all up and made a yummy grain-free snack.
Did you know buckwheat isn’t a grain? It’s a plant from the rhubarb family. I learned that from Kol’s Notes (thanks guys ;)). I would’ve assumed buckwheat to be, well, wheat. It is not.
I was able to stuff (completely full) 1 x-large KONG Classic (for Petal, though technically she should eat from a large size, but whatevs) and 1 large KONG Extreme (for Penny) and I still had a large spoonful left over.
Next time I’ll freeze it to make it more challenging. I didn’t this time because Petal hadn’t had breakfast yet (it was cooking in the oven) and I made this to hold her off.
Did it work?
“Mmm. Not bad. Not bad at all… “
“I’ll just be taking this. Thank you.”
Yes. Yes it did. It kept her happy, busy and her belly fed until her food was done cooking and cooling.
Do your dogs enjoy KONG treats? Do you freeze them or serve them unfrozen? What is your dogs favorite KONG stuffing recipe? We’d love to hear them in the comments!
Today we’re joining the Tasty Tuesday blog hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever. Go check them out for some super tasty recipes and details on the blog hop.
Yesterday I mentioned that I would be sharing a training treat recipe with you today. This recipe is really simple with only 3 ingredients (4 if you wanna count the splash of water) and can easily be used to make regular sized cookies if that’s what you want, but I used it to make tiny bite sized training treats.
Petal loves peanut butter and bananas. Peanut butter has a strong smell to it, a smell that Petal loves and will work for. Bananas are delicious, nutritious and add a sweet taste to the treats.
Here’s what you will need:
I used Krema peanut butter because it’s made with just one ingredient: Peanuts.
Mix together banana, peanut butter and flour. Mix it well. Then add a splash of water and mix well again. Do not go crazy with the water or else you’ll end up having to add a whole lot more of the flour and then you’ll be baking all night. I am speaking from experience. Don’t know what I was thinking adding a whole cup of water. Way too much. Just add small splashes, mixing well before adding more, until you get a nice dough. A good way to tell is to touch it. Did the dough stick to your finger? You need some more flour. Did it feel dry and crumbly? You need more water.
First picture: banana and peanut butter. Second picture: banana, peanut butter and flour. Third picture: banana, peanut butter, flour and water.
On a lightly floured surface begin rolling out your dough to your desired thickness. Then use small cookie cutters to cut little bit sized cookies. I used piping nozzles. They made just the right shape and size I was looking for. Plus I could use the other side to poke a little design into the top of the cookie, just for fun.
Piping nozzles as cookie cutters.
Yes, this did, indeed, take ages. Hours. So I didn’t bother to preheat my oven until I had already cut out a few cookies. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and load that thing up with cookies. Go ahead and place them close together, they’re not going anywhere. 😉
Loads of training treats!
Pop your treats into the oven and bake at 250 for 30 minutes. Allow them to cool for several hours, or over night in the oven, before storing them. I stored mine in an air tight cookie jar and they still smelled yummy a week later. However, if you’re concerned, you can store them in an air tight container in the fridge.
Petal loved these treats and they were the perfect training treat size; probably about the size of a US penny. Petal worked very well for them, making it worth all the time I spent cutting out tiny little circles. 😉
Today we’re joining the Tasty Tuesday Blog Hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever.
Hi all! Petal here! We have a treat review to share today and I told Mom that since I’m the one who taste tests them, I should be the one to write the review. She agreed.
Chewy.com sent me some tasty treats from a company called Fromm. They make all dry foods, canned foods and treats for us dogs. They make cat food too, but who cares about cats. All their foods and treats are made in the USA! Me and Mom have heard lots of good things about them, but we’ve never tried them before now.
Chewy sent me my very own 6 oz baggie of Fromm treats. They even put my name on the box. Says right here it’s for Petal.
They only put Mom’s name on it so she wouldn’t feel left out. They’re considerate folks at Chewy.
First things first when you get a package you gotta open it! My second favorite part!
My very favorite part is finding what lies inside. I have to say, I was very bewildered by these treats at first. My Mom thought it was funny, apparently she requested this flavor just to confuse me! There’s a word for that and it’s R-U-D-E (because Mom won’t let me use strong language, something about being a family friendly blog).
Now Mom insists on relaying the whole embarrassing conversation I had with her out in the yard…
Don’t laugh guys. I didn’t want to eat some strange cranberry hybrid’s liver. I didn’t see the comma in these here ingredients:
Wheat flour, cranberry COMMA liver, salt, garlic powder.
That’s it! According to the ingredient list on Chewy.com, the liver is chicken liver.
My Our (Mom just insists on being included) favorite things about these treats:
Low calorie (just 1 calorie per treat!) (this is obviously MOM’S favorite thing)
They’re made in Wisconsin with Wisconsin cranberries
They’re made with delicious liver (my favorite thing, Mom says “ick”)
They’re bite sized (about the size of a quarter) and perfect for training
They’re a fair price
They don’t stink and they don’t make Mom’s hands smelly
Things to consider:
They’re a crunchy treat, not a soft one, so if you’re looking for a soft training treat, this is not it.
The actual bag does not state what animal the liver is sourced from, so I’m just assuming that Chewy is correct and it’s chicken liver; the only reason I’m pointing this out is because I know some dogs are sensitive to certain meat sources, so sensitive doggies should be aware of that.
Chewy.com is also hosting a giveaway! There will be first, second, and third place winners. You can enter to win using the Rafflecopter below. Good luck!
(if the Rafflecopter widget doesn’t show up, just click the link. Sometimes it shows up for me and sometimes it doesn’t, I don’t know why. Sorry!)
Time to turn the blog back over to Mom, she has a treat recipe she wants to share with you all.
XOXO Petal
Last night I whipped up some dog cookies for Petal and I thought I would share the haphazard recipe with you all. Now I’m just guessing with these measurements because, uh, I rarely measure my ingredients when it comes to dog cookies. Measuring stuff = having to wash the measuring cups. Um, no thanks.
Here we go. Petal’s Fish and Fruit Cookies.
You will need:
About 2 1/2 or 3 cups of the flour of your choice (I used wheat and the last of the coconut flour that we had, but I know a lot of you pups have wheat allergies, so use whatever floats your boat!)
1/4 cup canned pumpkin (plain pumpkin. Nothin’ but pumpkin)
1/2 cup (about) Cranberries
1 cup..ish Pineapple chunks
Salmon oil
a few pinches of Parsley (I used fresh parsley because I had it on hand and it needed to be used)
Preheat your oven to 350º.
Throw the cranberries, pineapple chunks and parsley (if using fresh) in a blender with either water or the pineapple juice if using canned pineapple and puree well. Pour it into a mixing bowl with the flour and salmon oil (I used 4 pumps of Grizzly Salmon oil, but feel free to substitute or skip the oil all together or, if you have some canned salmon on hand, puree it and use that (I plan on doing this next time)) and mix well, adding more flour or more water as needed to make a good dough. Too sticky? You need more flour. Too hard and dry? You need more water.
Roll the dough out and cut with cookie cutters or use a pizza slicer to make squares (I used the pizza slicer because we didn’t have any cookie cutters small enough for what I wanted (bite sized cookies)). Place cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake. I baked mine at 350º for about 20 minutes before lowing the heat to about 200º, at which point I just peeked at them every so often and gave them a little poke. Once they felt a little bit crunchy, I turned the oven off and left the cookies in over night to cool.
Have you ever seen an uglier batch of cookies? This is what happens when I’m too tired to roll the dough out nicely. It also helped that I used our poor, lame pizza slicer too slice them. Our pizza slicer is so incredibly bent that it can no longer go in a straight line, it swerves and wobbles pathetically. Our pizzas’ look just as pretty.
This morning the cookies were nice and cold and I broke them apart easily and dumped them into Petal’s cookie jar. The cookies on the outer edges were nice and crunchy while the middle pieces were softer and chewy. They also smelled really good, very fruity, if there wasn’t salmon oil in them I would taste them, but I think the salmon oil would add a weird taste that I would not enjoy. Petal seems to love them though!
Today we’re linking up with the Tasty Tuesday Blog Hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever. Check out either blog for more info and the rules of the hop. If the hop does not show up below (the hop and the Rafflecopter are teaming up to drive me crazy), you can enter it at either Kol’s blog or Sugar’s blog.
Today is our first time joining the Tasty Tuesday blog hop. This blog hop is hosted by Sugar the Golden Retriever and Kol’s Notes. Go check them out to learn more!
Before we tell you all about some super tasty treats, we must apologize to Chewy.com for the major delay in posting this review. I’m incredibly sorry to everyone at Chewy for the delay. I can’t thank you all enough for your kindness, patience and understanding. I hope you guys can forgive me for the delay in reviewing these products.
Now for the review. We have freeze dried dog treats, freeze dried dog food, and canned cat food. Yes, you read that right, cat food!
These are Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Boost Minis from Chewy.com. Or chicken flavored freeze dried raw dog treats.
They’re grain free, contain no corn, wheat, soy, or gluten. They come in a 3.25 ounce resealable (score!) bag.
Their size and the fact that they’re low in calories (only 2 calories per piece!) make them perfect for training! They can be crumbly, but nothing too bad. They’re soft and delicious (according to Petal, cousin Penny, and even the cat cousins; I did not try them, so you’ll just have to take their word for it).
Not only are they perfect for training, but they’re great to bribe a finicky pet to eat! Petal and Penny never need bribes to finish a meal, but Harriet the cat needs a bribe from time to time. She was absolutely bonkers for these treats. She even snatched them out of my pocket, which you can see here in this video:
Yeah, I helped her out a little. It was either help her or suffer her wrath. Eep.
Petal ADORED these treats, everyone did! I liked that they’re low in calories, made in the USA, came in a resealable bag, and were a huge crowd pleaser.
Also, for you cat owners, they do make cat treats too!
Next up is Orijen Freeze Dried dog food from Chewy.com. Petal tried the Tundra version which is made with a variety of venison, elk, bison, quail and steelhead trout.
Harriet wants to know why Petal gets all the good stuff.
We received a 6 ounce bag of medallions (approximately 12 medallions). Their key benefits, as listed on Chewy.com are:
Key Benefits
I followed the instructions and found them to be true, though I only ever rehydrated one medallion at a time. I’m not sure if it would make a difference in time if you were to rehydrate several. I’m sure it wouldn’t so long as you added 1/4 cup of water for each medallion. For the sake of the photo I warmed a quarter cup of water in a tea kettle, but I’m sure warm water from the tap would work just as well.
Personally I thought they were a little bit stinky, but Petal L-O-V-E-D it. I gave her one every evening with her usual food until they were gone (so almost for 2 full weeks, but not quite). I was expecting, when she first tried one, for her to have a little bit of an upset stomach, just because it was new, but that never happened. Likely because she never ate more than one at a time, but even so, I was impressed.
This food would be far too expensive for me to feed to Petal exclusively and, I’ll be honest, I would never buy it for that purpose. However, I have no problem with the idea of buying it for her as an occasional treat to have with her usual meal, since she enjoyed it SO much. The ingredients are great, it’s a breeze to prepare, and Petal really loved it. Bu it’s too pricey for us to feed exclusively or on a regular basis.
Now for the cat food!
The cats of the house got to taste-test Nature’s Variety: Pride by Instinct canned cat food from Chewy.com.
By cats of the house, I mean two out of three of them, one of them is incredibly stubborn and won’t eat canned food unless it’s Friskies. Since he’s been living in this house much longer than any of us, he gets what he wants (most of the time).
The girls, however, were eager to taste this new food.
We got 4 3oz cans. 2 in the chicken flavor and 2 in the salmon flavor. 1 flaked and 1 minced in each flavor.
Pride is a grain-free and gluten-free cat food. There’s no corn, wheat, or soy and they’re made in the USA!
Plus check out the ridiculously adorable labels and flavor names. So. Dang. Cute.
The girls loved both flavors, but Harriet loved the chicken flavor best while Moonlight (Moony for short) simply loved going back and forth between the two flavors. She would take one bite of the chicken, then a bite of the salmon, then back to chicken, then back to salmon. It was too funny. They loved it so much that I added Nature’s Variety to their regular, daily diet. I added a different line from Nature’s Variety though, simply because it agreed with my budget better than the Pride line. If it wasn’t for that, I would’ve added Pride specifically.
The kitties simply loved this food. It was a huge hit. These finicky cats gobbled up every last meaty bite and licked up every drop of delicious gravy. It is on the pricey side if you have multiple cats though. Still, we would highly recommend it to our cat friends!
As for Chewy.com, we can not recommend them enough. They’re wonderful people for so many reasons. They’re generous and kind and fantastic to work with. I’m saying this as both a reviewer and a regular customer. I purchase from Chewy.com on a monthly basis. They have the best prices on the cat food we feed, the kibble cousin Penny eats and the supplements I give Petal. We also buy many of our other pet supplies from Chewy.
I’ve only had to contact customer service twice and both times they were very kind and very prompt. On one occasion I had to contact them about some canned cat food I ordered. The sent me the exact flavor and brand I had ordered, but it was canned dog food rather than cat food. I emailed them to let them know of the mix up and they promptly sent out the cat food and instead of asking for the case of canned dog food back, they told me to donate the dog food to a local shelter or rescue group. I was very touched by that and so was the rescue group I donated it to. They were very grateful and hopeful that the canned food would help bribe some of the dogs in their care to take their medications. Thank you Chewy.com!
Thank you Sugar the Golden Retriever and Kol’s Notes!
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Today we are joining the This ‘N That Thursday blog hop, hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs & Ruckus the Eskie, while we share what Petal got for Christmas!
Petal was a very good Collie this year. Which means she received a ton of gifts. It had nothing to do with the fact that she’s spoiled. 😉
Mom, no one wants to see Rudolph. They want to see ME!
Poor Rudolph. Petal shoved him out of the photo. She waited until the day after Christmas before being naughty.
A closer look at all her toys. The blue KONG Squeezz stick & the Wet Noses cookies are from our friends, Carly & Sailor. Thank you both so much! She loves them both, but especially the cookies. 😉 The rest are from me. I mean, Santa.
I got her a little stuffing-free squirrel/skunk/something animal (it has a few squeakers and some crinkle paper, Petal’s favorite), a stuffing-free crinkly Santa, a dinosaur stuffie, a Christmas owl water bottle cover, a stuffed Rudolph and a new bed cover that I made myself.
Reversible bed cover made by yours truly.
See? She wasn’t spoiled at all. 😉
By the way, those Wet Noses cookies are a huge hit. I’m also a little proud to say that I knew exactly what toy you and Sailor had give her, Carly. I knew just by touching it. That is how often I go to pet stores and play with the dog toys. I recognize a KONG Squeezz stick without seeing it. If that doesn’t say crazy dog lady, I don’t know what does.
I got some really wonderful gifts too, but this one is the one that touched me the most.
Thank you Mom & Dad. <3
A ring with Lassie’s name on it. A ring that will never leave my finger.
I hope you guys had a Merry Christmas and Petal wants to know, what did you pups get for Christmas? Were you naughty or nice?
P.S. For those who may be curious, the ring is from Silver Promo.
Blog Hop!
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Sweet Potato Stix, Chew Buddies (variety pack) and Mini Meaty Bites (in beef).
They are all corn free, wheat free, soy free and contain no animal by products or artificial colors. They were all made in the USA! We love USA made treats!
They’re also shaped like little KONG toys which I think is cute.
They smell very strongly (but not badly, if you ask me, they smell like beef jerky) and the dogs go wild for them, another great quality for a training treat. They’re very soft and easy to break in half, you know, if small is not small enough. 😉
“Nom nom nom.”
They’re about $5 on Amazon for a 4.5 oz bag.
We received a variety pack with 4 large Chew Buddies inside. Chew Buddies come in three different flavors to choose from: Chicken (porcupine and cow pictured), Fresh Breath (alligator), and Bacon ((adorable) dinosaur).
They smelled alright to me, but they must’ve smelled amazing to the animals because 2 out of three cats came running when I opened the bag and dumped them out for pictures.
Petal was my first taste tester. I let her pick which one she wanted to try.
Moony the cat wants one too!
Petal chose the chicken flavored cow and promptly chewed it’s head off.
Look! It has a little belly button! Hehe.
The chew lasted a little longer than expected, about 5 or so minutes.
She greatly enjoyed it, licking up all the crumbs she left and begging for another.
I gave Lassie the Bacon Dino to try and he gobbled it up happily.
Front
Back
Lassie gobbled it up in about five minutes and licked up every crumb. I think it’s safe to say he greatly enjoyed it.
As you can see from the picture above, it’s not a solid treat. For my dogs, it’s not a long lasting chew, but I didn’t expect it to be. I only expected for my dogs to enjoy chewing it, which they did!
I can’t claim it did anything to clean their teeth; they each have had only one so far. I would think, however, that long term use would provide dental benefits.
The large chews come in a package of 4 and the small chews come in a package of 10. The large chews go for about $13 on Amazon.
The only thing I was disappointed in with these chews was that I didn’t get an adorable piggy chew in my bag. 
;P
Lassie and Petal give Mini Meaty Bites 4 out of 4 paws up for tastiness!
I give them 4 1/2 out of 5 hearts.
Lassie and Petal give Sweet Potato Stix 3 paws up!
I give them 4 hearts.
Lassie and Petal give Chew Buddies 4 paws up!
I give them 4 1/2 hearts.
I would definitely consider buying the Mini Meaty Bites and the Chew Buddies. The Sweet Potato Stix are great and my dogs love them, but I tend to go for the meaty treats first. Plus I try to give very little of anything sweet potato to Petal. As a puppy, for whatever reason, her tummy was a little sensitive to sweet potatoes. I’m not sure if it still is. She did just fine with the Sweet Potato Stix, but like I said, I limited her to just 1 or 1 1/2 every few days. Lassie gobbled up many of them though and really enjoys them. I would consider buying them for use in our KONG Genius.
For more fun and more info about KONG Treats, you can follow them here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KONGTreats?ref=tn_tnmn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KONGTreats (handle: @KONGTreats)
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/kongtreats/pins/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/kong_treats
Alright doggies, get your humans over here and bark bark bark until they enter you into this giveaway. You wouldn’t want to miss out on some tasty treats, would you?
We’re offering 3 people a chance to win the same 3 bags of treats we just reviewed!
That’s right! 3 of you will win 1 bag of Mini Meaty Bites + 1 bag of Sweet Potato Stix + 1 bag of Chew Buddies!
The contest is open to US residents only. The winners will be announced here on the blog and contacted via email within 72 hours of the contest ending, so please be sure to leave your email address in the comments so I can contact you if you win.
Now get to entering! 😉
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You’re welcome to earn as little or as many entries as you want.
Now just one last thing before you go.
KONG Treats has a video contest going on! They want to see what your dog(s) will do for a KONG premium treat!
We have lots of talented doggy friends who may enjoy this contest.
For those of you who may be interested, here are some of the details:
For complete contest rules, please visit:http://www.jakks.com/KONGTreatsContestRulesFacebook
Discloser: I received 3 bags of KONG Premium Treats, free of charge, to review. I was not otherwise compensated. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own based on my experience with the products. I was not paid to write a positive review.
I am in no way involved with running the KONG video contest. I am simply spreading the word to those who may be interested.