# DIY raw training treats recipe



## OldGnarlHead

So I recently made beef jerky for my dog to use as training treats. I really liked it and it worked really well, but it was a pain to cut into tiny bits every training session. Here's my solution: dehydrate ground beef pre-scored into small squares!

What you need
Food processor (if store ground beef bothers you)
dehydrator or oven
Parchment paper or silpat

Ingredients
Raw meat of choice, I prefer beef.
Gelatin (optional)

I didn't want to use store-bought ground beef, because it kind of weirds me out, so this is what I did instead. 
1- I took a frozen piece of beef and barely, just-enough-to-be-able-to-cut-through defrosted it, and then cut it into cubes. 
2-I then took a handful of the cubes and put it into my food processor (you could do all at once but my food processor is very small). Make sure that the beef is pretty frozen before processing it, so it doesn't gum up the blades. What comes out is essentially ground beef!
3- Form the 'ground beef' (we affectionately call it a meat smoothie) into a thin square onto a silpat or a piece of parchment paper and lightly score with a knife or pizza cutter into squares of your desired size.

IF USING AN OVEN
4- Turn oven on to the lowest temperature and with more parchment or tin foil, prop the door of the oven open (so the heating element doesn't turn off).
5- Halfway through carefully flip the treats so the other side dehydrates evenly.
6- Dehydrate until dry all the way through

IF USING A DEHYDRATOR
4- Set dehydrator temp to 165 or highest setting, and dehydrate for 1-1.5 hours, then drop temp to 120-135 or medium until dehydrated all the way through. Make sure to flip treats halfway through dehydrating. 

If you find that when you make these they are still too crumbly, add a tsp or two a gelatin per pound. Make the gelatin as per the directions and then mix into your ground beef mixture!

And there you go! Depending on how thin you made them or how fine your ground meat is, they might tend to be a little crumbly, but we haven't had a problem with them so far! Hope you enjoy!


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## naturalfeddogs

I just use chicken livers in the dehydrator. Every one of our dogs HATES chicken liver, but if I dehydrate them, they all will do back flips for them! Go figure! I'm too lazy to add anymore steps to it than that. I rinse them off, pat them dry and through them in the dehydrator.


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## OldGnarlHead

Nice! Sometimes I'll just cut meat into strips and dehydrate that. I should try the liver idea though!


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