The Puppy Experiment

We try to leave our girl with something that might occupy a good chunk of her day while we’re out. We found that she just mostly sleeps when we’re gone, but leaving her the option of having something to play with at least makes us feel better as we walk out the door. Also it helps lessen their home-alone anxiety by leaving them with something they link to being “good”.

Now enter – The Kong
We mentioned this toy in our previous blog, but here’s specifically what works for us and her diet.

1. Kong + baby carrot + peanut butter
We used to do this before we started the raw meat diet, but I think it’s still a relatively healthy recipe to use for any dog. Make sure the peanut butter is unsweetened, organic is better. Drop in one baby carrot, plug up the top with dollop of peanut butter, and put in freezer for at least an hour. We used to prep this the night before and let it freeze overnight. The carrot might come out floppy depending on how long you freeze it, but our girl never cared.

2. Kong + chicken jerky
Stuff generous piece of jerky all the way into the Kong. If it’s wide enough, it won’t fall out. We do this now that she’s on a meat-only diet and she LOVES chicken jerky.

We get these from Petco and store them in the freezer. However, we’re strongly considering a food dehydrator to make our own like this (minus the seasoning) considering recent recalls of chicken jerky.
Wal-Mart Recall
USDA “Dingo” Recall
Jerky From China Recall

We stay away from that kong “stuff’n” stuff and we’ve definitely stopped feeding our dog any pre-processed dog foods and biscuits mentioned in old posts. (We’re learning!) For more information, see excerpt.

**Also see a tip I found from Miss Kylie for bigger dogs. Great for staying cool in the summer!