The Ultimate Dog Treat Cookbook: Homemade Goodies for Man’s Best Friend

by Liz Palika

Howell Book House, 118 pp., $14.99

Since my dogs have been dining for upward of eight weeks now on pork liver sautéed in butter and the like, it seemed to me a bit overboard to make them homemade dog biscuits, too. But this cookbook arrived at just the right moment and was an obvious choice for review. After all, commercially available dog treats are made out of the same industrial byproducts and ultracheap “unfit for human consumption” ingredients as other pet food; in fact, many popular treats have been part of the recall. Making your own dog biscuits is probably a good call.

Author Liz Palika has been baking her own dog treats for long enough to have a wide repertoire; nevertheless, her cheerful insistence that I would find cutting out bone-shaped dog cookies rewarding was met, on my part, with some skepticism. It sounded like just another chore to me. Well, I was wrong. It is rewarding. I have seldom, if ever, felt such appreciation. I picked out an easy recipe: Riker’s Favorite Liver Treats. Whipping the dough together was a snap, and long before I had them in the oven, I had an eager canine audience beaming at me hopefully from the kitchen doorway.

My dogs’ enthusiasm and gratitude for these homemade treats was enormous, and I got a huge emotional payoff out of making my buddies so excited and happy. I had no idea. Plus, the recipes easily make enough for an entire week, and it’s cheaper than store-bought. All 50 recipes in The Ultimate Dog Treat Cookbook are veterinarian-approved and rigorously dog-tested. Most of the treats resemble cookies of one kind of another, but Palika also includes frozen treats for hot summer weather, treats for special occasions, and treats for dogs with restricted diets.

This article appears in May 11 • 2007.

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Kate Thornberry worked in renowned Austin restaurants for 30 years while pursuing a reasonably successful career in music. She began contributing to the Chronicle in 1988 and became a regular contributor to the food section in 2006.