Peanut butter and banana provide plenty of flavour and nutrition in these easy to bake dog biscuits.
All of the ingredients should be easy to find in your kitchen cupboard, meaning you can make them on a whim and have them ready to munch in just under an hour.
Look out for peanut butter that’s low on salt and sugar and, especially if you’re in the US, make sure it doesn’t contain xylitol.
Ingredients
Method
These tasty dog biscuits are a two for one. Not only will your dog love them but they’re pretty nutritious, too.
The wholemeal flour and the oats provide fibre, while the bananas offer magnesium, potassium, vitamin C, and vitamin B6. The peanut butter not only gives the treats an irresistible flavour but also provides magnesium, vitamin E, manganese, and niacin.
There’s more variety to peanut butter than just crunchy or smooth. Sugar, sweeteners, palm oil, and other ingredients could make up roughly 10% of a typical peanut butter.
As part of a balanced diet, and as an occasional treat, using a peanut butter that has some sugar or additional salt probably won’t cause any harm. Just make sure you clean your dog’s teeth.
What can be dangerous, though, is the sweetener xylitol. Even a small amount of xylitol can kill your dog. At the time of writing, xylitol doesn’t feature in common UK peanut butter brands but is increasingly popular in the US.
The easiest way to be sure you’re giving your dog the good stuff is to use 100% peanut butter. You can find it in pretty much any UK supermarket. Pictured here is Aldi’s The Foodie Market brand of 100% peanut butter. Elsewhere, look out for Meridian brand.
If this were a human treat, we’d probably use cow’s milk to loosen the mixture.
However, there’s a strong chance your dog is lactose intolerant. Rather than risk a stomach upset, using water does the job.
Both of our dogs love these treats, with our Black Lab Teddy having a particular fondness for them.
To a human nose, they smell lightly of peanut butter but otherwise a little bland. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the mutts pick up on something as their attention pricks up as soon as the box opens.