"Yukon Quest" Dog Treat Recipe

It's time for the Yukon Quest! We have created a special dog treat recipe to celebrate the brave dogs who enjoy this sort of sport. And they do!



Yukon Quest Dog Treats

In Alaska this past summer I was fortunate to meet Mandy Nauman, a 32 year old rookie dog musher training for her first Yukon Quest race. The Yukon Quest is a 1,000 mile sled dog race starting in Fairbanks, Alaska and ending in Whitehorse, Yukon. Whitehorse is the capital city of the westernmost Canadian territory Yukon.



Mandy Nauman talks about training for the Yukon Quest

This race began in 1984 to support long distance sled dog racing as a sport. The race commemorates the Yukon River which was the historical highway of the north. It follows the winter trail traveled by prospectors, adventurers, and mail and supply carriers. 

Mandy works at a kennel and trains sled dogs. She introduced some of them to us. She demonstrated how the dogs are hitched to the sled and how they run. You could see the excitement throughout the team. These animals could not wait to start pulling that sled! Mandy explained that the most enthusiastic dogs are the ones chosen for mushing training. As you can see from the photos, they are mixes, not purebreds.

Sled dogs

There are 21 contestants in this race. The youngest musher is 22, and the oldest is 61.

"Yukon Quest" Dog Treat Recipe

This original recipe for dog treats uses reindeer sausage. It looks like any other sausage and is a favorite in Alaska.



Reindeer sausage

What you need:

• 1 package K9Katie's All Natural Cake and Biscuit Mix For Dogs
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Reindeer sausage diced into small pieces
• 18 mini bone silicone baking pan from K9Cakery.com greased
• Flat baking sheet for stability
• Fido’s Royal Icing for Dogs

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Using a large spoon, mix K9Katie’s Cake And Biscuit Mix, water, oil, cinnamon, and honey together in a large bowl to form a dough
• Fold in diced reindeer sausage.
• Press the dough into a greased 18 mini bone silicone baking pan. 
• Place the baking pan on a flat baking sheet for stability and place on the middle oven rack.
• Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.
• Turn off the oven and let the pan sit in the oven for 60 minutes more to dry out the biscuits so they become crisp and crunchy. 
• Take the pan out of the oven and let it cool. Then gently turn it over. The biscuits will easily drop out.
• Let the biscuits cool completely.
• To finish, mix up ½ cup of Fido’s Royal Icing adding the correct amount of water for drizzling as per the instructions on the package. Drizzle the dog treat icing over the finished biscuits and let it dry completely.

For the photo, we made mini dog bone ice cubes to display the treats because the Iditarod is run over ice and snow. To make ice cubes, simply put water in the silicone pan and place flat in the freezer.