Doggie Cookies!

I get so annoyed with the prices of pet treats, ESPECIALLY dog treats. My dogs don't even chew the small treats, let alone taste them! Since Sam had known food allergies as a puppy, I've always been skeptical about home-making anything for him. Now that he's older and we've tested a few different foods treats that we KNEW he'd had reactions to before, I know what he can and can't tolerate. (Go figure, I pick the dog with health issues. Apple, Tree....?!) I'd found a bunch of recipes online, but so many of them called for either off-the-wall ingredients that I wasn't about to purchase (or knew I couldn't find), OR they called for garlic (dogs shouldn't have garlic) or corn, which is one of his triggers. So...after much searching, I'd found a handful of recipes I wanted to try. I was planning on doing a couple of them, but I didn't realize that we were out of a couple of things I thought we'd had, and we only go to the store every 2 weeks after payday (except for essentials that run out, i.e. milk). So, I planned on making these cookies I'd seen that sounded simple. I'd bought cute dog cookie cutters at Michael's a while back, but hadn't used them yet. I didn't use one of them with these, but I did use the bones, dogs, and paw prints. I chose to leave out the dog houses. The only thing we struggled to find was carob, which I'd been searching for for months. Last weekend, I thought, what if a "health food store" had it, since it's "vegan?" We went to Whole Foods and found carob chips in with the bulk items that you bag yourself. WOOHOO! However, it was somewhat pricey. The only issue I had with making these nummies was, I'd microwaved the chips after baking the cookies, as the recipe said to, BUT it turned really thick and oily...almost like molasses, but worse. It wouldn't stick to the cookies. I'd wasted a whole cup of those babies. :( Jim melted them on the stove over boiling water, and that worked MUCH better. The pups LOVED them. It was funny...as I was making them (they STINK, btw. If you're a nurse, you know what I'm talking about when I say that the fragrance of molasses made my stomach roll. haha), they were sitting patiently right behind me and under my feet, which they don't usually do when I'm baking or cooking, unless something was dropped on the floor. They gobbled these up! I just stuck them in a big ziplock bag....I'm not sure on the proper storage. I suppose they should go in the fridge or freezer at some point if not eaten soon. I don't see that happening with our mutts. :) P.S. It didn't make as many as I thought it might, BUT I may have made them a little thick. Not sure.

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