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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Chicken Hearts for Dogs

High Value Treats

My trainer keeps saying, "You need high value treats that are different based upon the different situations you put your dog in. Higher value for harder situations/high stress, lower value for easier/low stress situations."

Having dogs means sometimes getting down and dirty with them, this means anything from cleaning up diarrhea in your house, barf, blood, mud, something dead they found or killed, to raw feeding, and other ickies that they love like chicken hearts!

Hmmm...chicken hearts...
Benefits of Hearts:
  • Chicken hearts are a lean protein that is high in fatty acids, vitamin A, B vitamins, and iron. 
  • Hearts also contain taurine which is good for your dog's heart.

Chicken hearts may be served either cooked or raw to your dog, but if your dog is not used to a raw diet you should probably cook it first, cooking also gets rid of the risk of salmonella. Another thing to be aware of; too many hearts can give your dog loose stools because of the richness.

Being that my dogs are not on a raw diet, I chose to cook the hearts.

Have you ever seen the inside of a heart?
Hmmm...golden brown hearts.
I chose to cut the hearts in half lengthwise, and toss them in a lightly oiled pan until they were nice and golden brown. 

You can also dry your hearts in a food dehydrator (cut them into small uniform pieces first!), or boil them in water giving your dogs both the meat and the broth as a yummy treat.

The kitchen guardian.
Somehow when I was cooking the hearts Dante just knew they were for him! He followed my around the kitchen with a nice wet bottom lip and watering mouth the whole time, and he was super enthusiastic when myself or the hubby asked him to do things.

I'll do anything, just give me that treat!
Tonight is Ziva's shaping class, i'm hoping that these treats will be of high enough value to get her to be a bit more enthusiastic in class. We also are looking for better SUPER HIGH value treats to help her learn to ignore other dogs - something we've been working on for a while now, it's slow going but we're going to get there!

I just discovered a dog walking group that meets up every Saturday and just walks. I'm hoping to join this group and walk Ziva with the group in a non-social manner, as a way of desensitizing her and teaching her that she needs to learn to ignore other dogs. We encountered this group over the weekend, what was awesome is that they were mostly bullies! And all the dogs were well mannered and just happily walking along! It's not a play group, just a get out and enjoy walking kind of group that is led by a local instructor and you don't have to be in a class to join.



*I am not a veterinarian or food nutritionist, please consult your vet if you have any questions, if your animal has special dietary needs, or before considering as switch to feeding raw.*

Sources:

5 comments:

  1. The other benefit of treats like chicken hearts is that fewer humans eat them. They end up being a healthy and inexpensive snack.

    Honey loves them too.

    Hope your walk group goes well with Ziva. I bet you'll really benefit from partner walking with other dogs.

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    Replies
    1. Definitely a huge benefit! We spend too much on treats. :-)

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  2. Great idea! I never thought of this. We give Barry canned green tripe. It's disgusting (to me). Looks like poo and smells like liver/poo. Barry LOVES it. Unfortunately we are limited to giving it to him in the house via a spoon or in a bowl because it's the texture of soft poo. I cannot carry it with me easily outdoors to give to Barry but we seem to have luck with just about any treat we pick to give him outside. If he sees me holding a treat he'll sit or listen regardless... for now.

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  3. I might try the chicken hearts, when Bain is fixated on a scent or other dogs he's pretty focused, he always wants to meet everyone.

    It's so funny they know when you are cooking something for them. Bain's favorite is ground beef, and I swear he knows when the batch is for him. Ha

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    ReplyDelete

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