Homemade Christmas Dog Treat Biscuit Bars and DIY Wrappers

Happy almost howlidays, furfriends! Today's post shows how to bake a segmented bar of homemade dog biscuit/cookie style treats as well as a fun option for wrapping little DIY dog treat gift bars for presents.

This will be out final post of 2019 before our Christmas/New Year's blog break, but we'll be popping up from time to time on our social media, so please join us if you're not already following the fun. Thank you for all the love you've shown to Oli and Humphrey this year, your kind words of condolence when our elderly cat, Tiger, passed away, and the support you've given to us and our Dalmatian DIY blog, especially when we took the leap of transitioning to our own domain. Happy holiday wishes and may your 2020 be filled with health and happiness. ~Laura, Oli, and Humphrey 

{RECIPE} Spirulina Sour Cream Christmas Dog Treats

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree, how yummy are thy branches... These tasty dog treats get the naturally deep green colour from spirulina powder. I used my Christmas tree plunger cutter to make the decorated trees, but a normal Christmas tree cookie cutter (or other shape of your preference) would work great with this green dough as well.

DIY Dog Bandanas with Serged Edges

Serging the edges of DIY dog bandanas can be a great option for speed, style, or material factors. Plus it's incredibly easy, if you have a suitable machine. If only it was just as easy to get these two rascals to smile at the same time when posing together! Haha!  Humphrey is always such a serious young lad:

{RECIPE} Peanut Butter Banana and Carob Christmas Treats

One month until Christmas, furfriends! In prepping our holiday posts this year, I couldn't resist experimenting with a few plunger cookie cutter recipes so I could play with my Christmas plungers, but this dough works well with standard cutters or as a simple ball-and-flatten treat. This dense fudgey dough worked great for cutting, and the dogs loved the irresistible combination of banana, peanut butter, and carob. Drool!

{RECIPE} Beetroot and Carob Gelatin Gummy Dog Treats

These yummy gummies use a dash of yummy carob to take the natural translucent red of a beetroot gummy treat to a richer more opaque deep red treat. Plus carob tastes/smells delish! 

{RECIPE} Strawberry Carob Christmas Spice Dog Treats

In confession, I simply couldn't resist pulling out the plunger cookie cutters to make a few final holiday treats.  My go-to carob powder smells a lot like cocoa powder to my underpowdered human nose, but in flavour  it's subtly sweet, a little nutty, and sort of reminds me of gingerbread. (I've tried it in human baking....not taste-testing dog treats, although I've been tempted! Hehe...) With spice and all things nice on the brain, I adapted our strawberry carob recipe to make a treat spiced up with a hint of cinnamon, ginger, and the rich scent of blackstrap molasses. Cue the drool! 

{RECIPE} Berry Bacon Barkmas Bone Dog Treats

  

Berry bacon barkmas bones...say that 10 times fast! :) These treats combine yummy strawberry (a dog favourite around here) with the irresistible scent/taste of bacon. Strawberries are in season during our Christmas holidays; however, frozen berries are fine for baking treats any time of year.  Any treat that gets crazy googly eyes from our beloved old Oli makes all the baking effort worthwhile! 

{RECIPE} Merry Fishmas! Naturally Green Sardine Dog Treats

It's beginning to smell a lot like Fishmas, everywhere you go... Oh my!  Super stinky and delicious, fishy treats are particularly irresistible to our boys. These are delicious and nutritious, with an all-natural green tint for an extra festive touch.  Pawfect for very good boys (or girls)! Woofs!

Free Mix-and-Match Printable Howliday Dog Tags and Labels

We have a bonus post for you this week with a little freebie! We'd just started sharing our Christmas line-up when we received a reader request asking if we could make a blue version of our Howliday tag freebies as they were gifting goodies for Hanukkah. Easy peasy! Since those freebies are Christmas-themed in their design/format, with a combo of Barkmas and Howliday tags in festive red and green, I decided to create a slightly different Howliday set and share it in both shades of blue as well as red and green so that you can pick your preferred colour or mix-and-match between both sets if you are celebrating or gifting for both occasions. Since Hanukkah is about to start and we already have a full line-up of Christmas posts prepped, we're sliding these freebies in as a special extra outside of our usual Monday posting cycle.

{RECIPE} Cranberry Chicken Christmas Cookie Dog Treats

Mmmm...the holidays are so close we can almost taste them! It's one month until Christmas, and here's the first of our barkmas-themed posts for this year. Woofs! As blog dogs, our boys taste test holiday and special occasion treats well before the calendar (they never complain!) and if you are currently swimming in leftover turkey, dry turkey meat would make a great substitute for the cooked chicken in this recipe. You can bake and freeze your treats or (like often do, and as was used in these treats) freeze some small batches of cooked meat for future use. Winner winner, chicken dinner! 

{RECIPE} Spiced Apple Gummy Dog Treats

Yummy, healthy, and easy to make! These spiced apple gummy dog treats are quick and delicious. Like most gummy treats, they're low guilt at our place where the dogs absolutely love their gummy treats and we love that they are getting the health benefits of quality gelatin in sneaky "treat" form. 

Easy DIY Holiday Scarves for Matchy Matchy Family Photos!

I set myself the challenge this year of trying to get a furfamily Christmas photo.  Our dogs love posing solo, but are definitely not interested in posing together as you would have seen in a few funny shares here on the blog and our social media over the years.  Like typical kids being forced to pose for pictures by Mom, and all the more grumpy faces if they are (gasp!) forced to pose in matching outfits.  The horror!  Add the cat to the mix and it's total chaos. 

{RECIPE} Molasses "Kiss" Carob Drop Dog Treats

Delicious peanut butter with a hint of blackstrap molasses and a droolworthy carob drop "kiss" make these downright irresistible to my boys. Meet me under the mistletoe! Puppy kisses for kisses accepted.

DIY Christmas Ornament Dog Treats without a Plunger Cutter

We've been sharing lots of different holiday treats in our barkmas bonanza this year, including cute Christmas plunger cookie cutters (affiliate link) for treats like our gingerbread dog treats, carob and peanut butter dog treats, and spicy apple dog treats, but we though we'd throw in a bonus post hot on the heels of our last plunger treat post of the year for those of you who'd love to make a patterned treat but can't get your hands on a set of Christmas plunger cookie cutters.

{RECIPE} Apple Cinnamon Christmas Dog Treats

Easy DIY Howliday Treat Bauble Christmas Ornaments

These howliday dog treat ornaments are easy to make and they're pawesome inexpensive little gifts for furfriends, takeway gifts for holiday pawty guests, or a little take along pressie for the furbabies of your host/hostess.

DIY Squeaky Stuffed Christmas Tree Dog Toy

This DIY squeaky Christmas tree softie dog toy is part of our three-piece set of Christmas triangle toys.  Triple the squeaky holiday fun!  There are no doggy play pictures in the post as Humphrey is counting down the days until his Christmas morning squeaker fest. :)  Here's how it was made:

{RECIPE} Peanut Butter and Carob Christmas Dog Treats

"Chocolate" and peanut butter? Doggone irresistible! These treats swap the chocolate for dog-friendly carob as a delicious adaptation of our smooth roll-and-cut peanut butter dog treat recipe. This dough handles well for roll-and-cut treats, but if you're looking for a quick and easy alternative, you can use fork flattened balls or go for our simple no-rolling DIY dog treat method.

{RECIPE} Naturally Green Christmas Tree Dog Treats

These miniature Christmas tree dog treats are naturally green bite-sized bits of Christmas goodness, made using an adaptation of our leafy green dog treat dough and were perfect with my miniature Christmas tree cookie cutter - bite-sized for my boys.   For a slightly richer and darker green colour, I used a combination of both kale and wheatgrass. I also experimented with low-fat coconut milk powder in lieu of low-fat diary milk powder.  It had a little more impact on the liquid-to-flour than my usual low-fat dairy milk powder (slightly less flour required for a cohesive dough), but nothing significant and it added a great scent to the mix.  Dairy is still my go-to for baking, but if you're dog is lactose sensitive or you're just looking for a change, it's definitely a potential substitution option.  

Christmas Gift Ideas for Dogs and Dog Lovers

Two weeks until Christmas!  Are you ready for Santa Paws?  If (like me) you and the elves still have some shopping to do, here's the 2017 edition of our holiday ideas with tips for the dogs and dog lovers on your nice list. Woofs!