With all of recent scares over dog treats from China being dangerous for pets, I have only been giving the dogs homemade dog treats. Since sweet potatoes are loaded with vitamins, I tried making some sweet potato dog chews and they turned out great. These sweet potato dog treats are a great replacement for rawhide chews which are not easily digested by dogs.
All you need are 3 medium sweet potatoes and either an oven or dehydrator. I used the dehydrator, but am sure the oven method would turn out just as good.
Wash and dry sweet potatoes. Cut each sweet potato into 1/4 inch slices length-wise. A mandolin would be great for this, but I don’t have one. A sharp knife worked fine for this.
No lemon juice is needed for these chews, dogs don’t like citrus or care if they turn brown.
Dehydrator method: Place sweet potato slices on dehydrator trays, making sure they are not touching. Dry the potatoes for at least 14 hours. I did not get up in the middle of the night to turn my machine off, and they came out just fine after 18 hours. Cool on wire rack.
Oven method: Place prepared sweet potato slices on parchment lined cookie sheets. Heat in 250 degree oven for between 3 to 4 hours, turning half way through. Cool on wire rack.
Store sweet potato dog chew treats in refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
Your dog looks exactly like my Bishon, Pixie. It was like staring in her eyes! I will definitely try your recipe. Pixie definitely loves sweet potato in her treats.
Thank you for this post. I got my dog sweet potato treats last summer and she loves them. I decided to make them by myself, but like the french fries. They shrunk a lot so she was getting 2 a day (she is an 11 lb.s maltese). Now I will do it second time, will try to slice them. The only problem I have is that sweet potatoes come in so many varieties. Last time I got ones which were orange inside but this time they are white. Not sure if it matters, hope it doesn’t.