Ground Lamb or Goat Liver Squares (Dog Treats)

A dog’s natural diet is a carnivore diet, the diet of a predator. Thinking of dog treats might bring up an image of a biscuit for many people, but the ancestors of our canine pets, wolves, didn’t eat processed grain. Our domesticated dogs may have acclimated a bit to a slightly different diet living alongside humans, but wolves and other carnivores eat meat, and most of the time, it’s raw. Cooked meat is also fine, but we think there’s something special about feeding a dog treats and diet supplements made from the highest quality grass-fed lamb and goat meat, in it’s purest form.

This was one of the first recipes Chef Alan Bergo designed for our grass-fed lamb and goat dog program. It’s nothing more than ground meat mixed with ground lamb or goat offal of your choice, like kidneys, livers, spleens or hearts. As long as it can go in a food processor or a meat grinder, it can go into the freezer, or even the dehydrater, but if you choose to dry them, for easy storage or so they can be transported, you will want to press the mixture into a flat disk for quick dehydrating.

After the mixture is frozen or dried, they can be stored in the freezer if frozen, or in a glass jar, or another container in the pantry if dried. Like our other treats, these aren’t meant to be a meal in themselves, due to the cost of serving our pets raw, high quality meat, but rather as a supplement for you to serve with their normal serving of food, or as a special treat.

This recipe is by chef Alan Bergo. A chef from Minnesota, Alan is a veteran of the culinary industry, former executive chef of acclaimed Lucia’s Restaurant, and the Salt Cellar. Founder of the website Forager Chef, he’s best known as a respected authority on Midwestern foraging. Learn more about Alan and his hunt for mushrooms, wild and obscure foods at Forager Chef.