new for us friday: homemade dog treats!

I've been trying really, really hard lately to play Cesar Milan when dealing with Brady and not be a frustrated, cranky owner of an 8-month old doodle dog who loves to steal socks, small toys, and paper.

So for this New For Us Friday, we had our pooch in mind when we hit the kitchen. Always trying to give ourselves a reason to reward Brady's (very seldom) good behavior with treats or warm pets, today we a made a little something new for him: Homemade Dog Treats.

• Brady's Best Dog Treats: It was a busy day for us between a half day of school for Maddy, play dates, and errands, but after we had a bit of time to relax this afternoon, we got baking. For Brady.

I called it Brady's Best Dog Treats, and the pdf is here to download in case you want to bake for that special furry friend in your life.

Owen mixes the initial oatmeal-ish part of the treats.

I found the recipe online and modified it according to the 200+ comments readers made. I also made it easier for my three kiddos to read and use; I enlarged the font, added pictures next to the ingredients, and put a line in front of each ingredient to check off as we added it.

Maddy, Owen, and Cora grabbed their aprons, met me at the counter, and we got rolling. Overall, it is a simple recipe with inexpensive ingredients and a recipe that is verrry flexible according to what you have in your pantry.

We broke the recipe into three parts: the oatmeal-ish part, the dough part, and the cutting part.

Adding the 3 cups of wheat flour made our dough tough to work with.

Owen worked on the mixing the oatmeal-ish part which needed to rest for 10 minutes. As it 'rested', Cora cracked and beat the egg, and Maddy added the cornmeal, cheese, milk, and sugar.

As we worked, we talked about the importance of reading recipes closely and measuring carefully. I tried to have Owen read the ingredients as we pulled them out of the pantry and encouraged him to use the picture next to the word to help him since that's what readers do--they use the pictures and the words to help them figure out what's on the page.

Everyone's favorite part--hands down--was the kneading of the dough. It was too difficult to mix in the bowl, and I was too lazy to pull out the big mixer. So kneading did the job, and everyone took turns.

Maddy kneads the dough (and Cora gives it a pat).

After the dough was mixed, I rolled it out to about 1/2 inch thick, and we used cookie cutters to make the treat shapes. I thought we'd only use the teeniest cookie cutters (because I wanted us to use these treats frequently for training) but they were way too small and took way too much time to cut, punch out, and put on the cookie tray

The tiny cookie cutters were way too tiny
for our time frame and treat-makin' skills.

So I hunted down some bigger cookie-cutters and used them to get the show moving a bit. I used a football (which I halved) and a heart, and this recipe yielded more than enough treats.

Once everything was cut out and on trays, we baked.


And then we waited.


And then they cooled.


And then we tried them.

The teeny-tiny Brady's Best Dog Treats and the not-so-teeny treats.

We--Maddy, Owen, Cora, and I--tried the dog treats. And they weren't all that bad.

We knew what went into them, we smelled them baking, and we had to try them. They look like cookies for goodness' sake, so we had to. And it was right before dinner, so we were hungry.

We all had a few of the teeny-tiny ones, and by the second or third, we'd had enough.

We'll stick with our favorite fall people-treats--Iced Pumpkin Cookies--and our Dinner in a Pumpkin on Halloween night.

But in the name of learning and love for our pooch, at least we can all say we've tried Dog Treats. And since dog treats are always around our house, it's actually better that no one loved them.

Except Brady that is--he LOVED them. So hopefully he'll zip into tip-top shape so that he gets rewarded with some of his very own Brady's Best Dog Treats.

And that's it--a New For Us Friday sharing just an easy little way of sneaking in some early reading, math, and science skills into a fall afternoon while Dad's playing golf and Mom's ready for the weekend.

Happy Dog-Treat Baking (and tasting)!