Okay Internet, get ready to feast your eyes on ninety-five pounds of lovable goodness:
Photo by Shannon Carney
This is my dog, Prada. When not sleeping, going for walks, and taking selfies upon selfies with me, Prada’s favorite thing to do is eat. And while sneaking him table scraps is not an option as of late (#summerbodygoals, am I right?), I can’t bear the thought of not letting him sneak a little treat every once in a while.
So, to help keep my boy’s tail wagging and to help keep him cool in this summer heat, I decided to make him some “pupsicles” made with dog-friendly ingredients. I gave Prada a sampling of a couple of different flavors of pupsicles, and have ranked his preferences from a scale of one to five “woofs.”
Photo by Shannon Carney
(Oh, and here’s one of our thousands of selfies, in case you were curious.)
1. Whole-Fruit Pupsicles
Photo by Shannon Carney
Ingredients: Strawberries, sugar-free maple syrup, water
Rating: 1/5 Woofs
I’ll be honest, Prada didn’t even give this popsicle one lick. I thought the lightest option of the bunch would appeal to my pooch, but it was not meant to be. Can’t say I’m surprised though… he does tend to turn up his nose at most healthy foods. Maybe there just wasn’t enough maple syrup to satisfy his sweet tooth?
2. Milk n’ Honey Pupsicles
Photo by Shannon Carney
Ingredients: 1% milk, creamy peanut butter, honey
Rating: 3/5 Woofs
Prada loves ice cream anytime, anywhere. So I wasn’t all that surprised that he went back for second licks of this pupsicle. That being said, this was still the most middle of the road pupsicle that I created. Not terrible, not fantastic, but definitely not as good as a scoop of ice cream from our favorite local ice cream shop.
3. Chicken Pupsicles
Photo by Shannon Carney
Ingredients: Chicken flavor instant bouillon, shredded rotisserie chicken, water
Rating: 2/5 Woofs
Shockingly, my chicken-loving pup found this treat pretty fowl. All puns aside, it turns out that the popsicle I thought my dog would love the most was one of his least favorites. Maybe it was too much bouillon, maybe he didn’t want to take the time to wait for the chicken to thaw out of the pop… the world may never know.
4. “Elvis” Pupsicles
Photo by Shannon Carney
Ingredients: Creamy peanut butter, honey, mashed banana
Rating: 5/5 Woofs
A surprise hit, Prada couldn’t get enough of this pupsicle. Even before I had opened the molds, he was already incredibly curious about this PB-laden treat. In fact, he picked up the mold and carried it away from me, afraid that I would take it away from him. He licked the mold clean, so I guess that goes to show that a dessert named after the King of Rock ‘n Roll is bound to come out on top.
So, while not all of the pupsicles in the taste test went as planned, it definitely gave me some ideas about dog-friendly desserts to try in the future. And something tells me that if I do decide to whip up some more treats, Prada would be more than willing to be my guinea pig… or “guinea Labrador Retriever?” You get the idea.
Photo by Shannon Carney