The Short Answer
Combine three dog-safe ingredients into a stiff dough, roll it out to about a quarter-inch, cut your shapes, and bake at 350°F for 20–25 minutes. That's the whole method. The only real complexity is picking ingredients that are actually safe for dogs — and that's where most homemade treat recipes go wrong.
I'm Preston Smith, co-founder of Bully Sticks Central. We sell chews, not cookies, so I have no reason to oversell baking. But a lot of our customers bake for their dogs, and they deserve straight information about it.
Three Combos That Work
1. Peanut Butter, Banana, and Oat Flour
Roughly one ripe mashed banana, a half cup of natural peanut butter, and one and a half cups of oat flour. Add flour until the dough stops sticking to your hands.
Read the peanut butter label first. Xylitol — also sold as "birch sugar" — is toxic to dogs and appears in some reduced-sugar peanut butters. Even small amounts can cause a rapid, dangerous drop in blood sugar and liver failure. The FDA has issued a consumer warning about this specifically. Buy peanut butter whose ingredient list reads: peanuts. Maybe salt. Nothing else.
2. Pumpkin, Egg, and Whole Wheat Flour
One cup of pure pumpkin purée, one egg, and about two cups of whole wheat flour. Use plain canned pumpkin, never pie filling — pie filling contains sugar and spices your dog doesn't need, and nutmeg in larger amounts isn't good for dogs.
Pumpkin is a reasonable fiber source and is commonly recommended for mild digestive upset. If your dog has ongoing loose stool, that's a vet conversation, not a cookie fix.
3. Sweet Potato, Unsalted Broth, and Whole Wheat Flour
One cup of cooked mashed sweet potato, a quarter cup of unsalted chicken broth, and flour to bind. Check that your broth has no onion or garlic in it — both are toxic to dogs, and both hide in most store-bought broths. Unsalted, onion-free, or homemade only.
What About Wheat and Grains?
Wheat is fine for most dogs. True food allergies in dogs are uncommon, and when they do occur they're most often to animal proteins rather than grains. If your dog has a diagnosed sensitivity, swap in oat or chickpea flour. Otherwise, don't let grain-free marketing make the decision for you — talk to your vet.
How Long Do Homemade Treats Keep?
Not long. There are no preservatives in these, and that's the point. About a week in an airtight container in the fridge, or up to three months frozen. If you see any fuzz, throw the whole batch out. Moldy food can produce toxins that make dogs seriously ill.
How Many Treats Is Too Many?
The standard guidance is that treats should stay under 10% of your dog's daily calories, with the other 90% coming from complete, balanced food. Homemade biscuits are not balanced nutrition — they're a snack. A batch of banana-peanut butter cookies isn't dinner.
Where Baking Falls Short
Here's the honest limitation: a soft baked biscuit is gone in four seconds. It doesn't do anything for your dog's need to chew, and it doesn't scrape at plaque the way a real chew does. Dogs have a genuine drive to work their jaws on something, and a cookie doesn't touch that.
That's the gap our chews fill. Our single-ingredient chews are 100% real meat with nothing added — no flour, no binders, no ingredient list to decode. Bully sticks are fully digestible, unlike rawhide, and they're ethically sourced from grass-fed American and Argentinean farms. If you're baking because you want control over what your dog eats, a single-ingredient chew gets you the same control with a lot less flour on the counter. And if you're baking with peanut butter, you might also want to read our take on peanut butter treats before your next batch.
Bake the cookies. They're fun, they're cheap, and dogs love them. Just don't expect them to do a chew's job.
Sources
- FDA — Paws Off Xylitol; It's Dangerous for Dogs
- ASPCA — People Foods to Avoid Feeding Your Pets
- AKC — Human Foods Dogs Can and Can't Eat
- VCA Animal Hospitals — Food Allergies in Dogs
This post was last updated at July 17, 2026 01:54
