From Bowl to Belly Organic Food for Your Furry Friend

Dog Birthday Cake For Your Furry Friend

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One of the most important days of the year just passed for me: my dog Waffles had his 6th birthday!

Waffles is my best companion and one of my best friends!I dont know about you, but as a huge animal lover, I love to celebrate my puppys birthday with a gorgeous dog-friendly birthday cake. This adorable cake is packed with ingredients that are not only great for dogs but ingredients that they love the taste of. Made with whole wheat flour, peanut butter, eggs, applesauce, grated carrot, and just a touch of honey, this cake is wholesome and the perfect Dog Birthday Cake for your furry friend!

Do you have to bake a dog cake?

Made with similar ingredients to a whole wheat carrot cake, my Dog Birthday Cake recipe is whipped up and baked just like a regular cake. The pup-friendly cake batter is super quick to whip up so celebrating your dogs birthday is no chore at all.

In one bowl I simply whisk together the ingredients then divide the batter between 2 small 6-inch tins. Filled with natural peanut butter (without xylitol), fresh carrots, and applesauce, this cake has lots of nourishing ingredients for your doggy. They love the flavor of the carrot and peanut butter. Please just make sure that the peanut butter you use issmooth, not salted, and free fromxylitol.

Can humans have some dog cake?

The funny thing is, this cake can absolutely be eaten by you, your friends, and family as well! Since there is just a touch of honey in the cake its not particularly sweet, though. So while I would not suggest serving this cake at a dinner party, it is totally safe for all to eat.

How long will a dog birthday cake last?

Just like a regular cake, this Dog Birthday Cake can be covered in cling wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. I love to save leftovers and dole out little bits as treats after Waffless birthday party. This cake also freezes really well. To save some of the cake and use at a later time simply allow it to defrost at room temperature until soft.

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Prep Time 25 minutes mins

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr

Made with whole wheat flour, peanut butter, eggs, applesauce, grated carrot, and just a touch of honey, this cake is wholesome and the perfect Dog Birthday Cake recipe for your furry friend!

Author: Gemma Stafford

Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup (2floz/57ml) flavorless oil
• 1/3 cup (4oz/115g) applesauce
• 1/3 cup (2 oz/71g) peanut butter*
• 1 cup (5oz/142g) carrot, grated
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 cup (5oz/142g) whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• additional peanut butter for frosting, if desired

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Butter and line 2 (6-inch) round cake pans with parchment paper, set aside.

• In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, oil, apple sauce, peanut butter, carrot, and honey until smooth.

• Next, stir in the flour and baking powder until combined. Divide the batter between the two prepared cake pans.

• Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center of the cake comes out clean. Allow cooling in the pan for 3-5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Let cool to room temperature.

• Stack layers together using a thin layer of peanut butter. Serve a little slice to your furry friend.

• Cover the cake with cling wrap and store at room temperature for up to 3 days. Freeze the rest in slices to give as a treat in the future.

Recipe Notes

*Peanut butter:Please just make sure that the peanut butter you use is smooth, not salted, and free fromxylitol.

Beyond the Bowl: Feed Your Furry Friends Belly and Soul

How best to feed our dogs is one of the most ethically fraught choices we make as loving caregivers to our furry companions. A core duty of a responsible dog guardian is to provide consistent, predictable access to nutritionally appropriate food and fresh water. That sounds simple enough. But it isnt so simple, is it? And it is only the beginning. Over the past several years, considerations about feeding dogs have expanded to include behavioral and social needs related to food.

Many of us spend countless hours trying to figure out the healthiest food choices, sifting through nutritional advice and asking trusted sources such as our veterinarian what is best for our dogs.

In one of my recent posts, I explored the behavioral needs of dogs in relation to poop and peewhich mean far more for dogs than simply a chance to empty bladder and bowels. A similar point can be made about feeding: There is far more to feeding than simply plopping down a bowl of kibble.

Source: zhaolong V/Unsplash

Physical needs

Discussion about how best to feed dogs tends to focus on the content of the food, the what.

What is the right food? This is impossible to answer in the abstract, except to say that we should aim to give our dog food that optimizes their well-being. So, we look for food that provides what a dogs body needs (nutritionally meaningful ingredients, not cheap fillers such as sawdust), gives them energy to be physically active, doesnt upset their stomach, doesnt cause allergic reactions such as itchy skin, doesnt put them in a low mood, and accounts for individualized medical needs. And, of course, we aim for food that our dog likes, or maybe even loves (see below for a cautionary tale).

Beyond the question of what to feed lie a range of interesting questions about when and how we feed. And this is where things start to get really interesting.

Rewarding properties of food

Many dog guardians get hung up on the palatability of food. And this is certainly importantwe want our dogs to enjoy their meals. But other rewarding properties of food are equally important, including its smell, appearance, and texture (especially mouthfeel). Even the shape of a kibble can affect how appealing it is to a particular dog and also, it seems, can influence how well a dog chews his food, with one study showing that changing kibble shape from round to cross-sectional resulted in more chewing behaviour, slower ingestion speed, and a significant decrease in food-seeking behaviour. This is particularly beneficial when seeking to manage excessive body weight.

There are really easy ways to test palatability: Watch your dog eating and look for signs of pleasure. How excited does your dog get when the food is being prepared? Would he care if you pulled the dish away? You could taste test comparison of several different types of foodwhich does your dog eat first and with greatest gusto?

Behavioral needs

Although dog food might be filling and palatable and nutritionally appropriate, it may still not meet a dogs' food-related behavioral needs. Dogs are motivated to hunt, chase, stalk, scavenge, tear, and chew. Eating a bowl of kibble doesnt satisfy any of these behavioral needs. As animal welfare researchers Andrew Knight and Liam Satchell have suggested, the way modern domesticated dogs are fed bears little resemblance to natural canid feeding behaviors.[i] Most notably, very few homed dogs rely on hunting to source their food. Moreover, under natural conditions, food availability would be somewhat unpredictabledependent on killing prey or being near humans who have food. Being fed kibble at a predictable time every day is not natural, nor is free (or ad libitum) feeding. This lack of resemblance to natural feeding behavior creates some potential welfare problems for dogs.

Social feeding

The behavioral aspects of eating are also important to dogs and dog welfare will be improved if we can find ways to make the act of eating more closely resemble natural feeding behaviors. Knight and Satchell suggest, for example, that because dog and human feeding behaviors were closely linked throughout our co-evolutionwith dogs successfully scavenging leftovers from humansallowing dogs to eat at the same time as the human family may provide beneficial social enrichment. This runs counter to a common but misguided piece of dog training folklore, which warns that there must be strictly enforced boundaries between when and what dogs eat and when and what humans eat.

Food-related problem-solving

Knight and Satchell also recommend facilitating dogs appetitive problem-solving behaviors by asking them to work for food, whether by gathering kibble that has been scattered across the floor or by working through a puzzle feeder. (Appetitive behavior refers to active, exploratory, seeking behavior which increases the likelihood that an organism will satisfy a need. Appetitive behavior precedes consummatory behavior.)

Chewing

Source: James Lacey/Unsplash

As Knight and Satchells remarks suggest, dogs have behavioral needs related to feeding which extend beyond the ingestion of calories. One of these related needs is chewing. A 2020 paper by veterinary researcher Christine Arhant and her colleagues Rebecca Winkelmann and Josef Troxler explores why chewing is behaviorally relevant. Looking at the feeding patterns of free-ranging dogs, which they consider the ecologically relevant analog of the domestic dogs feeding behavior, we see that about half of their diet comes from carcasses. Eating carcasses requires a lot of chewingan average of 26 minutes of chewing during a meal. Dogs behavioral motivation to dissect and chew dead animals will not likely be satisfied by eating a bowl of kibble. [ii] Ive timed Bella eating her morning bowl of kibble and it takes her roughly two minutes to consume her meal, and there is very little chewing involved. How can I make up for the other 24 minutes of lost chewing opportunity?

One option for meeting a dogs behavioral needs around food would be to supply carcasses as a supplement to kibble. But, like me, you might find this an ethically and aesthetically undesirable choice. The next best alternative is to provide acceptable (to humans) chewing material. Providing chewing opportunities and materials, though, presents, another set of potential risks and benefits dog guardians must navigate. Chewing may improve dental health; it may also damage dogs teeth. Chewing can reduce stress and meet a behavioral need; chewing on objects can also be an indicator of negative emotional states. Chewing can cause serious medical issues if dogs swallow non-digestible objects such as socks and plastic squeakers, which they seem inclined to do. Opinions about which chewing materials are best are all over the board. For example, some will tout raw bones because they allow a dog to tap into her inner wolf; others say that raw bones will make dogs ill and will crack their teeth.

Find out what your dog likes and needs

Fortunately, our dogs are willing subjects when it comes to experimenting with foods and feeding patternsthey will likely be very happy to indulge us.

Here are a few resources to get you started:

• Knight and Satchels article on palatability and feeding behaviors is open access and can be found here.
• Arhant et al.s research on chewing behavior is also open access and can be found here.
• Tufts Pedfoodology website has numerous articles about how and what to feed, written by veterinary nutrition specialists.

furryfriendbakery.com

May 17, 2023 1:28 pm

and your support has made Furry Friends Biscuit Bakery POSSIBLE!

Karen now has a Furry Friends Biscuit Bakery booth at the Southwest Plaza Mall Farmers Market every Saturday, from 8am2pm for the 2023 Season! We are looking forward to seeing friendly faces and as always, well be offering up freshly baked biscuits for your furry friends, including samples at our booth!

(The last Farmers Market date at Southwest Plaza Mall this year will be Saturday, October 28, 2023)

Southwest Plaza Farmers Market is located at 8501 W. Bowles Avenue and Wadsworth Blvd. Map here.

ANY QUESTIONS? Please contact Karen, here.

SEE YOU THENand THANK YOU!

July 21, 2022 1:21 pm

Dear Furry Friends Community Thank you for your patience these last few months, as we navigated the care of a cherished loved one.

We are grateful for your kind support, and to be able to start selling biscuits again just in time for the holidays!

Scroll up for details, or visit our facebook page, here.

Thanks, again!Hugs and love to the pups!Karen

April 9, 2014 11:43 pm

and I know you do too. As co-founder of a local shelter here in Colorado, lost and homeless dogs have a special place in my heart (thats why youll find a heart biscuit in every bag!) We all want our furry friends to have a long life and good health, so Ive done my homework. Baked and hand packaged in my own kitchen, Furry Friends Biscuit Bakery selects the finest ingredients that are both healthy and tasty. Your dog will love these treats, just as much as mine do! Karen

WHOLESOME INGREDIENTS

My homemade dog biscuits contain only the finest ingredients. Each biscuit is hand-cut and slowly baked to provide a great snack for your furry friend.

I use organic and free-range eggs, organic flours, organic herbs and spices, and many other natural and organic ingredients. I also buy raw honey from my Loveland veterinarian who has 14 hives in her backyard. I buy my high quality liverwurst (without chemical preservatives) straight from Continental Sausage in Denver. Its good food.

These biscuits are super tasty. They are loaded with flavorful ingredients like olive oil, organic peanut butter, Romano cheese, and free range ground chicken. Give your friends something that has taste and good smells! Why do you think they always beg at your kitchen table?

And if you or your dog are not completely satisfied with our biscuits, please return them for a full refund.

We stand behind the quality of our dog biscuits 100%.

VALUES

Our goal is to provide healthy, premium pet treats made with quality ingredients that will make our furry friends happy, while raising funds to keep our Colorado animal welfare organizations thriving so they will find homeless dogs and cats good homes.

Therefore, I feel it is important to produce our biscuits in a manner that helps Colorado in various ways:

• Recycled Paperboard: The wraparound package is made from recycled paper products. Please continue the recycling circle and recycle the package one more time.
• Humane Treatment/Free Range: It is important to treat the animals that provide us with food in a respectful manner. I use cage free eggs and ground chicken that grazed on natural grass and other good feeds. No microbial wash is used to preserve the meat.
• High Quality, Natural and Organic Ingredients: Where I can locate organic ingredients, I use them in my biscuits. Because this is a small company, the biscuits are not yet certified organic.
• Donate to Colorado Animals Shelters: I donate much of the net profits to Colorado humane societies and other animal welfare organizations that work so hard to find a forever home for our homeless animals.

Buy Local. Living in Boulder County, we are fortunate to be close to many small farmers. I purchase locally produced honey, meat and veggies when available.