Trying cat treats

Sorry about the click bait, I didn’t actually eat cat food lol.

I tried making cat treats.

Every time I go to buy cat treats – not cat food, just treats – it’s at least $40. I spend maybe $80 a month on treats alone.

Conan eats treats at least twice a day, and he only likes one dry treat brand, Temptations. I think these are available in the U.S too. He basically inhales them… since the little old man has hardly any teeth left. He also likes wet treats like mackerel and tuna fillets which I cut up before serving to him.

I decided to try my hand at making my own cat treats with this tin of Sardines that I’ve had in the pantry for ages and never managed to eat. My thinking is that maybe I can make these regularly? I’m shit at cooking for humans, why not cook for my cat? 🤷 what could go wrong?

I wish I took more photos during this process… but I wasn’t thinking of posting about this initially and this was just meant to be a test run based off an idea I pulled out of my…. head.

What I did…

Ingredients:

• 1 can of Sardines in tomato sauce (125g)
• 1/4 cup of corn flour
• 2 Tbs water

Method:

• Pre-heat oven to 155C fan forced or 175C for normal oven.
• Add the ingredients to a food processor or blender. I used one of those Ninja things.
• Mix until combined and it feels like dough. Add more water if too dry, add more cornflour if too wet.
• Flatten the mixture onto a surface like you’re making cookies, and cut into small squares.
• Put squares on a lined baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes. You will know they are done when they are a little golden but not too hard.
• Leave to cool
• Feed to cat. Or dog.

This is how it looked in the tray before baking:

The result…

Conan ate them, sort of.

The house definitely smelled like sardines, especially my hands.

And the blender… is fishy.

So he liked them after his initial sniff test and immediately tried to eat them, but the squares were too big! Because of his lack of teeth situation, and even though they weren’t as hard as the Temptations, the slightly larger square made it difficult. So he ate some then gave up quickly. My mum laughed as I tried to offer him a treat and he literally turned his head away. This is a cat without the luxury to chew :'( Plus the next day, they hardened a little more, meaning it was out of the question for him.

Warning: When re-opening the bag of sardine treats the next day, prepare for maximum sardine smells.

See, Temptations doesn’t have a pungent smell when you open the bag, unless you deep inhale or something, there’s hardly a smell to think about. What this means is, cat treats are made with the human in mind too! The companies know pet owners aren’t going to buy treats they can’t stand the smell of. Not that I personally mind sardine as I’m eating it, but when I open a treat bag for Conan to shush him up while I’m working from home, I don’t want to be sitting stuck in a room with it. Plus baked sardine or any fish is just different than raw sardine out of the can, it’s more pungent somehow… these pet food companies have secrets.

I have a lot to learn, and this is only the beginning.

Next time, I’m going to try something completely different and will post again with the results.