Our Secret Recipe

I had someone ask me last week about our recipes that we use for our dog treats. There is a big part of me that wants to give them some of the key ingredients because they had tried to bake their own treats at home, and their dogs ate them, but they didn't go ballistic over them like they do our treats - and I always want to help out.


First, here is some background on our recipes. Our recipes for our treats are all variants from the same core recipes that are over 15 years old. Without divulging their origins (we've only been open for 2.5 years) I believe they originated from an employee that had begun their career at one of the founding dog bakeries (you know which one) that is out there. Please consider this is mostly speculation, but having spent almost five years thinking about, researching, and living the "dog bakery dream", I have seen over a thousand dog treat recipes from books, online, and other sources. I am sure that the recipes we have and the ones at (you know who) have diverged quite a bit since then, but the original recipes from their book and the ones that we have are pretty darn close. We were not the originators of these recipes, they have been passed down from various people and businesses over the years until we came into their possession.


Something else most people don't know is that in order to work at Bigwag, our employees sign a non-disclosure agreement, which legally prevents them from telling anyone what our recipes are. We've worked hard to protect our assets, and our recipes are one of our most valuable. We also have this secret "bat-cave" safe that opens up out of the floor where we keep the recipe book protected from all manner of intrusions as well as a direct bomb blast that - OK, that part was imaginary, but if I would have had an unlimited build out budget for the store the bat cave safe would have been in the plans - believe me!


We also get a lot of questions about mold. There are a lot of dog treats out there that "I have been told" seem to mold easily after only a few days. This really isn't part of our secret recipe. We don't use any preservatives or mold prohibitors - as do these other guys. When you don't use those, there is always a chance of mold - especially if you don't bake out all of the moisture. Our secret on this subject is that we use a big commercial convection oven so that we can bake out almost all of the moisture without turning them into dark brown burnt crisps. We did have a batch of seasonal treats mold on us once - mostly because we didn't bake them all of the way and they still had some moisture in them. Our soft bites don't have as long of a shelf life as the rest of our treats either, because we don't bake them as hard as the other treats. We want them to be crumbly, not crunchy.


This is mostly employee error, referring to Erin and I, as we rushed something to get in a deadline or we did not factor in humidity in our baking and proofing times, and have learned from this process. But as a rule, we don't expect any mold in our treats. Our treats are crunchy. If anything ever does mold, you should bring them back to our store for an immediate replacement. Do not under any circumstance feed a moldy treat to a dog. This can be dangerous.


Another aspect of our basic recipes is that you won't see any sugar, corn syrup, or salt. Dogs love sweets, and sweet is generally cheap, which is why so many dog treat manufacturers use a form of sugar as one of the top four ingredients. If you really read the ingredients of these other treats - see where the good ingredients are in relation to the sugar or fructose syrup. By law they have to be listed in order of their ratio highest to lowest, but once you get to the fourth or fifth ingredient, you are looking at tablespoons in entire batches. Adding carrots or peas in as the third to the last ingredient right above "Vitamin A" is like adding 5 peas in five pounds of treats. It gets it on the ingredient statement, but what good do five peas do in an five entire pounds of treats - especially when you bake out all of the moisture.


So, our secret ingredient. I wish it were as simple as ground rhino bones imported from Africa, or rose extract from a tropical island. Pet food manufacturers have taken it for granted that most of the time dogs will eat whatever we hand them. They lump third hand ingredients together, add some sugar so there is anything at all enticing to the dogs, and then slap a picture of a cute dog on the label. When you have a huge segment of dogs that are used to this kind of treat, and then you give them a treat that actually has real ingredients in it, it's no wonder that they often don't go back to eating that other preservative laden junk food.

• So, the real secret to our treats, as much as I can divulge, out here for the first time -
  Don't skimp on the ingredients. Use real food. If you need to even look at palatablilty enhancers, then you are missing the game. Most dogs can tell the difference.
• Feed fresh treats. Our dogs won't eat treats that are even half of what their shelf life really is. We don't have treats in our store that old, as they move pretty fast, but on occasion we find a bag in our pantry at home that could be 3 months old, and they begrudgingly take them or spit them out. Guess how old M!(KBONES are...
• Bake out all of the moisture. This makes them crunchy, but mold can be harmful to dogs, and we want them to last longer than a week.
• Use ingredients dogs like - peanut butter, honey, pumpkin, cream cheese, carob, bacon, liver, beets, cheese, cinnamon, and egg.
• Use ingredients that are good for dogs - veggies, pumpkin, spinach, whole wheat flour, canola oil, rolled oats, beets, and real bacon. Don't add any extra sugar or salt, or MSG, or Propylene Glycol.
• Use ingredients people like - mint, mint oil, and fresh mint (good for all of those face lickers and sweet kissers). Did I mention mint? Keeps the breath fresh!