Pumpkin Dog Cookies from Keeley in the Kitchen

Stashu enjoys a pumpkin dog cookie

Spring break brought some special visitors to our house: my daughter Keeley, her husband Arthur and their dogs Fletcher and Allie. It’s always a pleasure to welcome them and I enjoyed having Keeley’s company in the kitchen.

Keeley in the kitchen

Among the many things we cooked together were these pumpkin cookies for the dogs. Most dog owners will be familiar with the wonders of pumpkin in remedying canine constipation as well as canine diarrhea. Explaining this apparent paradox is well beyond my knowledge base although I think it’s safe to say that pumpkin is generally a good thing for doggy digestion. (Also, if either of these ailments is a serious or long-term problem for your pet, promise me you’ll get him or her to the vet pronto.)

Making your own pet treats is a great idea, of course, because you get to control what’s in them. It’s not something I do for my dog Stashu on a regular basis, so for him it’s a nice change from a store-bought biscuit. He really enjoyed these pumpkin cookies, as did Fletcher and Allie.

Keeley found this recipe on Pinterest and we tweaked it just a bit: doubling the amount and finding the right measure of canned pumpkin to make the dough stiff but pliable. (If you are not familiar with pinterest.com, consider this your introduction and be warned that you may find it mildly addictive.)

Fletcher likes his pumpkin treat

You can cut the cookies into whatever shape you like, even scoring the dough into squares will work, or dig out those bone-shaped cookie cutters. I don’t seem to have any of those since I purged my cutter collection, so we went with rounds and the dogs didn’t mind a bit.

We hope you will try making this recipe for your furry companions. Send me a photo of your pet enjoying his or her pumpkin cookies and I’ll share it here on the blog.

Keeley’s Pumpkin Dog Cookies

 Preheat oven to 350º F.

 Cover baking sheets with parchment paper.

Ingredients for pumpkin dog cookies

4 eggs

1 ½ cup pumpkin puree

4 tbsp skim milk powder

½ tsp sea salt

2 tsp dried parsley

5 cups rice flour

Mixing in the ingredients

In a large bowl or the bowl of a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, beat together eggs and pumpkin.

Stir in the milk powder, salt and parsley until well mixed.

Gradually add rice flour – about a cup at a time – and mix until all the ingredients are well blended. The dough will be quite stiff, but if it is unmixable, add a little more pumpkin puree or water so that everything combines well. It will be like a shortbread dough looking a little dried out and cracking here and there.

Rolling the dough on a sunny afternoon

Roll the dough to about ½-inch thickness and cut into desired shapes.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool completely before storing (or sharing with your pets).

Makes approximately 4 ½ dozen 1 ½” rounds and 2 ½ dozen 2” rounds.

Printable Recipe for Keeley's Pumpkin Dog Cookies

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