Dehydrating food for treats.....

 Hmmm...lets see.  I've done liver, both beef and chicken, chicken breast, steak, salmon and chicken hearts. 

I slice it up small then dry it.  Its tough to cut afterward and takes longer to dry if its one big piece, plus if its oily at all, the outsides will be less so.  If you cut it up, 4 sides will always be oily.  Not so wonderful for pockets.  

I dry mine at a low temp for a long time. But how long depends on what I'm drying and what size it is.  I just check it every so often.  And for things like liver, I stir it up every couple hours.  Just a note, Liver smells horriffic.  Beef is worse than chicken, but only marginally.  Salmon makes your house smell like fish for 2 days and your oven smell like fish till you clean it with oven cleaner...BUT my dogs worked like crazy for that!

Theres a post i made a while ago for "training treats for raw dogs" becuase Baileys belly doesnt like most store bought treats too much, and the only ones that didnt upset his allegies he didnt like enough to use for training. Someone suggested dehydrating.... and I'll never be buying store bought dog treats again. I just put them in on really low (like 150-175 degrees) and let them stay in for 6-9 hours (depends on how watery the meat you are using is) The first ones i made i used beef heart, it smells odd but i dont think it was that bad. I tried liver after, and holy crap does that smell. If you dont like the smell of liver, dont use it until a day when you can have all your windows/doors open to get the smell out. Although they stunk up the whole house, Bailey LOVED them. I acutally have some in the oven right now, im using beef meat this time.
I cut them into thin strips for dehydrating, and then after i use scissors and cut them into really tiny pieces. Bailey will do ANYTHING for these. They are alot easier to handle than plain cooked or raw meat, and deffiently a higher value treat than anything store bought.

I'm a pretty big fan of making beef jerky every once and awhile and when I do I always pic up a bunch of minute steaks to do up for the furkids.  I just put the whole steak  in the dehydrator.  They just love it.  The only bad thing about it is it takes so long to make and they eat it in minutes! 

Be interesting to know if anybody else tries anything else.

Johnny & Tessy

 hmmm...minute steaks, never thought to use those! 

I made jerky for my husband and my dog. even with the chili pepper flakes in it she loves it. of course she will eat anything with chili pepper in it. strange dog. my last border collie was the same.