do dogs eat bananas?

Because I'm writing a post on my other blog about bananas, I wanted to write here about Penny eating bananas.

She loves them and begs for a little piece every time someone has one, which is quite frequently. I thought I'd better check my facts before posting on this topic.

There are lots of sites on the Net saying it's okay for dogs to eat bananas, but also some isolated mentions of their being toxic.

The ASPCA lists it as non-toxic.

Lowchens Australia (an amazingly huge and detailed site) includes bananas on its list of plants that are non-toxic to dogs.

I looked in a couple of books on my shelf and two books include banana in recipes.

Dr Sasha Herbert, a vet at Lort Smith Animal Hospital, in her pet cookbook nibble munch chomp, has the following delicious-sounding recipe for fruit muffins for dogs:

preparation time
 Medium: 15-45 minutes to prepare 

 ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup oat bran
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg lightly beaten
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoon vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk (low lactose)
1/2 apple grated
1/2 banana mashed 

         
method
Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F).
Line muffin tins with baking paper.
Mix dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl mix the egg, honey, oil and fruit.
Add the milk to the dry ingredients and blend well.
Add the other wet ingredients into the batter and mix well.
Distribute the mix evenly between your muffin tins.
Bake for 15-20 minutes.


serve
Served cooled.

Cooking For Your Dog, by Ingeborg Pils, includes this recipe for banana chips:

12 oz (350g) whole wheat flour
3 fl oz (100 ml) skimmed milk
1 egg
1 pureed banana
1 tablespoon golden syrup

Mix all the ingredients into a dough. Roll our the dough on a floured surface to 1/2 inch (1 cm) thickness and cut into small cubes. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Cover a baking sheet with baking parchment and place the cookies on it. Bake in the hot oven for about 30 minutes.

Penny would think she had gone to heaven if I served up either of these to her, as we don't feed her wheat products or milk. Note I didn't say she never gets them. She usually manages to haul us toward fallen food on the street and has had her share of muffins, bread, hamburgers in a bun, sandwiches, cakes...just about anything you could imagine, actually.

great new dog cookbook aids animal hospital

Yesterday I came across a lovely new book full of healthy recipes for dogs. (Actually, it's for humans, too, and cats, ferrets, birds, lizards, turtles, rabbits, guinea pigs and rodents, but who cares about them?)

The cover of the book grabbed me immediately because it was so gorgeous. (I always judge a book by its cover!) But I've noticed the version that is to come out soon on Amazon has a less colorful design. I presume the Amazon version would have US measures and names for ingredients, as I can't think of any other reason for the difference in the editions, seeing it's brand new.

It's written by Dr Sasha Herbert, senior vet at the Lort Smith Animal Hospital, so that gives the recipes credibility. She mentions a recipe loved by Jasmine, a samoyed her family adopted from an animal shelter many years ago. She say:

Walking along the rows of cages with all those sad eyes or frantically wagging tails is one of the hardest things to do.

Yes!! Many years ago I took my class of young children to an animal shelter. It was the first time the children had seen me cry. I couldn't stay within metres of those sad, sad cages and had to wait outside for the students to come out.

So I love the fact in buying this book I'm giving money to the Animal Hospital.

The first recipe I'm going to try is a meatloaf, made of one kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef mince, two eggs, a tablespoon of tomato paste, two cups of breadcrumbs, one large carrot, grated, one cup of chopped celery, including the leaves, two tablespoons of soy sauce, one large garlic clove, chopped, and a cup of raw rice (which has to be boiled for 15 minutes and the water strained off after it has cooled).

It sounds simple. You just bake it for forty minutes at about 5 cm (two inches) deep in a baking tray. She says for the celery you can substitute fruit or vegetable pulp left over from juicing.

There are a couple of ingredients I've never given Penny - garlic, tomato, soy sauce - but I'm willing to try them because the author is an experienced vet. However, I won't be feeding this often, because Penny basically has a raw diet, and we don't usually feed her rice or bread.

I thought I might try baking a little of it for longer and producing treats for training - but it might be too crumbly, so I'll have to experiment.

This is one of the most beautifully produced dog cookbooks I've seen.