Every October I end up with at least three cans of pumpkin puree in the pantry that I bought with big baking plans and never quite got around to using, and a couple of years ago I decided the leftover cans were better off going to my dog than sitting there until next fall. I…

Pumpkin and peanut butter work just as well cold as they do baked, and freezing this combination instead of baking it turns it into something genuinely different, cooling, smooth, and ready in minutes of active prep rather than a full oven session. This guide walks through one simple frozen version of the pairing, along with…

Blueberry and peanut butter make a genuinely good pair, tart and sweet against rich and savory, and twisting the dough into a simple braided shape turns an ordinary baked treat into something that looks a little more special without adding any real complexity to the process. This guide walks through one simple recipe for these…

Fall is the one season where my kitchen ends up with an embarrassing amount of both sweet potato and canned pumpkin at the same time, mostly because I use them in my own cooking constantly and always seem to buy more than I need. A few years ago, instead of letting the extra sit in…

I bought a mini waffle maker on a whim a couple of years ago, fully intending to use it for myself, and it sat in a cabinet mostly untouched until I started wondering whether the same idea would work for dog treats. Sweet potato was the obvious first thing to try, since it’s soft enough…

The first cold snap of fall always sends me straight into soup mode, and a few years back I noticed my dog hovering by the stove a little more intently than usual while a pot of turkey and sweet potato simmered away. He wasn’t going to get any of that particular batch, since it had…

Sunday nights at my house usually mean meatloaf, and for years my dog sat through the smell of it cooking without ever getting a piece of his own. It felt a little unfair, honestly, watching him stare at the oven like he had any say in the matter, so I eventually built a version just…

My nephew was making rice krispie treats in my kitchen last summer, and my dog planted himself directly under the counter the second the marshmallows came out, convinced whatever was happening up there was meant for him. It obviously wasn’t — marshmallows and the amount of sugar in a traditional batch have no business anywhere…

Some homemade dog treats feel like a project, and some feel like something you could make on a random Tuesday without any planning at all. Beef and pumpkin patties fall firmly into the second category. They come together with a short list of ingredients, they cook quickly, and the finished patties have a texture dogs…

There’s something about a small, round treat that gets a different reaction than anything shaped like a biscuit. Maybe it’s the size, maybe it’s how easily it disappears in one bite, but mini meatballs tend to get a level of enthusiasm that’s hard to match with anything else in the homemade treat rotation. They’re also…