How to Make Satin Balls: An Easy Recipe

To the uninitiated, satin balls may sound like an ultra-luxurious doggie toy. Yet the term does not refer to an exorbitant plaything. Rather, satin balls are edibles that could be key for your dog maintaining a healthy weight. Better yet, they’re easy to make at home.

What Are Satin Balls?

Satin balls are raw meatballs that are loaded with carbohydrates and fats. They are designed to pack weight on your pup very fast. Considering that hamburger meat is the traditional main ingredient, you can count on your dog devouring these balls without much of an issue.

What Makes Satin Balls a Good Idea?

While satin balls sound like a decadent treat when taken at face value, the truth is that they can play a vital role in nursing a dog back to health. This is primarily the case with emaciated dogs that are in desperate need of gaining weight quickly.

An emaciated dog is not just a fancy way of saying the dog is skinny, either. Indeed, a pooch that is emaciated will have a substantial loss in muscle mass and body fat. It’s not completely uncommon to see a dog in an animal shelter or a rescue group in an emaciated condition.

Satin balls can also be presented to dogs that simply don’t eat. While they should never be considered a de facto replacement for a legitimate diet, they can be used as a means to help the pooch maintain a healthy weight while you strategize a means to get him to stick on a proper, consistent dietary regimen.

Additionally, satin balls can be a key component to providing nutrients to nursing dogs. New mama dogs need a boost in their caloric intake to produce a sufficient amount of milk; the problem is, some new nursing dogs will struggle with this increase and may refuse to eat altogether. Satin balls will counteract this behavior.

Satin balls are also a hit with owners of show dogs. The reason being is that the treats consist of ingredients that work to give dogs a shiny coat. This in turn produces a radiant, “glowing” look that judges tend to look for when examining a pooch.

Satin balls can be easily made at home. All you need – other than a dog that would benefit from consuming the spheres – are the proper ingredients and just a little bit of time. And properly made satin balls do require just a little time to create – you can put together a batch in just 10 minutes.

Before we share the recipe, bear in mind that what follows is for large breed dogs. If you have a small dog, you will want to build this recipe by using roughly 1/10^th of the ingredient amounts that are listed. Anything more would cause your little guy to gain too much weight.

Let’s start with the ingredients. The classic recipe calls for 10 pounds of hamburger meat, 1 large box of Total cereal, 1 large box of oatmeal, 1 jar of wheat germ, 1 ¼ cups of veggie oil, 1 ¼ cups of unsulfured molasses, 10 raw eggs (including shells), 10 envelopes of unflavored gelatin, and a pinch of salt. For the meat, the cheapest kind available is usually suggested.

The first step that you’ll take once everything is procured is to mix all of the ingredients together. It’s not unlike the same process you may use to make a meatloaf. Don’t worry if the resultant mix doesn’t look pretty – your dog won’t really care what it looks like as long as it’s yummy.

Next, you will simply divide the mix into 10-quart freezer bags and freeze. When you are ready to dole one out to your four-legged friend, simply remove one of the bags from the freezer, roll it into a ball when thawed, and serve it up. Don’t cook the mixture once it’s thawed – it is meant to be given to your pooch raw.

Things to Keep in Mind Before Serving Your Dog Satin Balls

Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind when it comes to prepping satin balls is that these should be strictly made for the purpose of helping a dog either gain or maintain a healthy weight. They should never, ever be considered a viable replacement for doggie treats. Doing so could cause your dog more harm than good in the long run.

You shouldn’t balk at the idea of feeding your dog cheap meat in this situation, either. Meat at the lower end of the price spectrum tends to have a higher fat content. If you’re making satin balls, that is exactly what you should want to provide your pooch. Save the lean stuff for when he’s back to a healthy weight.

Also, you should avoid making satin balls for your pooch if he is overweight. While a pudgy pup refusing to eat may indeed get the nutrients he needs should he suddenly stop eating, he’ll also likely pack on unnecessary pounds in the process. This could lead to long-term issues that can cause the pup more harm than good.

Ultimately, you can play around with the recipe if you’d like. For example, there are recipes out there that incorporate ingredients like heavy cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, and peanut butter into the mix. However, the basic recipe is the best place to start if you’re looking to bulk up your buddy.

The Pathway to Good Health

When you feed your four-legged friend satin balls, he will probably think that he is getting a special treat. Of course, you know that the only thing “special” about it is that it acts as a rather impressive weight-gain supplement. And you shouldn’t waver from treating it as such.

Instead, treat each satin ball as a sphere that will lead your pooch to a good weight and good health. While your dog will appreciate the tastiness of each ball, you will appreciate the fact that it’s helping to prevent him from being too skinny.