Homemade Gluten-Free Dog Treat Recipes

Homemade Dog Food - The Best Way to Make Sure it's Truly Gluten Free

Nov 3, 2009

It can be hard to tell if a commercial food or recipe is gluten-free. Gluten, a protein composite, is at the root of a lot of pet allergies.

Does your pet have an allergy to gluten? It takes a lot of searching for recipes for foods the pet can eat. It's not an easy allergy to manage, with gluten hidden in so many ways. Gluten is a composite of two proteins called glutenin and gliadin. Many, many dogs have allergies to this protein composite because carnivorous animals aren’t made to eat a diet high in grains. Pet health can be compromised.

Go to any search engine, and enter “homemade gluten-free dog food recipes.” It’ll come up with several million websites with recipes to look at, but it’s not until after it's clicked on when it's discovered that the recipe has gluten in it. Maybe the writer doesn’t know which foods have gluten, or maybe they’ve only heard of one kind of gluten. But, it can be misleading and the wrong recipes won’t help you or your pet. In fact, harm can be done, so be careful.

Keep This List of Gluten Containing Foods

These are foods that either contain gluten or will make gluten when added to another ingredient;

Gluten is also used as a stabilizing agent in ketchups and some ice creams, though giving those to dogs is not recommended anyway.

Rice is not a gluten-containing grain. Rice is almost always tolerated well by dogs and many high quality commercial dog foods are based with it. With so many commercial dog foods it can be hard to make a choice even if the label is clear. To control exactly what goes into a pet’s diet, homemade food is the best choice, and rice is a great ingredient to add.

Homemade Treat Recipes

Food is very important but pets need treats even if their diet is well managed, just like people. Below are some easy recipes to make. They do not contain gluten in any way, shape or form and most dogs love them. However, do not use them to replace the animal’s food or meals, these are to give sparingly because they will cause weight gain in some animals. Just like people treats.

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients. Spread on a greased baking sheet and bake at 375(f) for 25 minutes, then cut into bars while it’s still hot. Move to cooling rack and completely cool before serving.

Keep refrigerated or put them in the freezer. Dogs love these when they’re frozen solid, plus it cleans their teeth like crunchy foods do.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine cheeses and yogurt. Add instant potatoes. If needed, add a small amount of water to create a nice dough. Knead dough into a ball and roll to 1/4 inch. Cut into one inch sized pieces and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Makes 2 dozen.

These two recipes should keep a gluten-allergic pet happy, but stay tuned because there are many more recipes to share with parents of allergic pets.

A Couple of Sites

Good recipes, but remember to use gluten-free oats where it says oats, etc, and watch for those other hidden glutens.

A Weight-loss message board for people with a thread that contains some good suggestions for gluten-free treats.

The copyright of the article Homemade Gluten-Free Dog Treat Recipes in Pet Nutrition is owned by Sandy McCollum. Permission to republish Homemade Gluten-Free Dog Treat Recipes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.