In our Day School program, we go through a lot of dog treats! During our busiest weeks, it is not uncommon for us to use 10 pounds or more. We’re always looking for the fastest and most cost-effective ways to prepare and store this much food in our training studio.
When it comes to food rolls, we have this down to a science. We recommend and sell Happy Howie’s treat rolls. Happy Howie’s rolls are way less crumbly than other rolls on the market, which is why they are our favorite. These are 1- or 2-pound chubs of semi-soft dog treats which you can chop up or tear chunks off to give to your dog. Because you take care of the cutting yourself, these treats are very inexpensive per-pound.
Chop Treats in 5 Minutes or Less
Here’s how we process the 2-pound Happy Howie’s treat rolls at the Academy in just 5 minutes or less.
1. Unwrap the roll. While a pair of scissors works just fine to snip the plastic open, we use a pair of large dog nail clippers.
2. Slice the roll into discs. We usually aim for 1/4″ thickness – these are a bit thick.
3. Place one disc at a time on to the cutting portion of your Vidalia Onion Chopper.
“Wait, what?”
Okay, if you don’t have one of these, you desperately need one. Not only are they useful for veggies, they are worth their weight in gold for chopping meat roll treats. At the time of writing this blog post, one will set you back less than $20 on Amazon.com. You can also get them at places like Bed Bath & Beyond or any drugstore with an “As Seen on TV” section.
4. Press down firmly to chop the treats.
5. Admire your work:
6. Repeat until you’ve chopped up the entire roll! When you get into a rhythm, it should take you less than 5 minutes to do an entire 2-pound roll. I’m even including the disc slicing in that time frame. Really – it’s that simple.
Back to the Vidalia Onion Chopper for a second. When we first bought one of these, several of our friends and colleagues scoffed, “that will be so difficult to clean!” Not even a little bit. It comes with this handy little plastic tool to scrape out the crumbs from around the blade and the little nubs that press the food down. It takes less than two minutes to clean and wash the entire thing. Easy peasy.
Storing the Chopped Treats
Once we have chopped up the entire roll, we freeze these treats in small plastic containers. They thaw perfectly – they don’t get soggy or stick together at all. In a pinch, we have even microwaved them to get them to room temperature faster, and that doesn’t affect them either.
I hope this post lets you spend less time chopping treats, and more time training your dog! If you enjoyed today’s blog post, be sure to follow us on Facebook for more great dog training tips.
