Just a quick note after reading two posts in one week about giving vanilla yogurt to dogs (regularly, I mean).

Plain and vanilla are not the same thing. Vanilla yogurt, 99% of the time, is also loaded with sugar. We don't want to feed a sugary food.

The package will say "Plain" on it.

Hi Connie ~

What about yogurt with sugar substitute; like equal or splenda for instance....

I have had a hard time finding plain yogurt (in the grocery store) with a high number of active cultures in it. I have fed yoplait thick & creamy strawberry before but then notice the HIGH sugar content.... and I stopped......

Your best bet is a natural foods store, where virtually every choice has live active cultures.

Fake sweeteners are worse, IMO. Dogs do not react well to artificial sweeteners, and have been killed by xylitol (in sugarless gum).

I would not give yogurt at all if I didn't have plain no-sugar live-culture yogurt.

The supermarket brands are often the equivalent of a dessert, with sugar plus "fruit" (jam).

I would say maybe worse. I know there have been warnings about the artificial sweetener Xylitol being deadly to dogs. Why chance it?

I use Mountain High plain yogurt. I get it at Albertsons, and several other markets. Usually the bigger markets should have it. Also any whole foods or health food market will have good, plain yogurt and/or Kefir.

Good luck!

OOPs, you beat me!

Is kefir more beneficial than yogurt? It seems from the label that it contains more live active cultures than even the better yogurts. I know it took awhile to unscrew my face after I took a taste. Kefir is tangy!

Why buy it? Yogurt is amazingly easy to make.

1) Heat whole milk to 165-170F. This pasturizes the milk and also conditions the milk proteins to make a firmer yogurt.
2) Let cool to 115F
3) Stir in a cup of yogurt with active cultures. I've been using Dan-Active and another one that claims to boost immune respose. I don't recall the name offhand. However, any container of Dannon or Yoplait will work. As will any other brand that as active cultures. You can also use leftovers from your previous batch as a starter. Or eat half the yogurt and dump rest in the milk. You are breeding bacteria, so all you really need is enough to get them going and replicating.
4) Put milk container in an ice chest
5) Fill ice chest with water at 115 - 120F. The key here is to maintain the milk with the growing cultures at an optimal 112-118F temperature.
6) Go play with (err, um, train) dogs for five or six hours.
7) Yogurt's done.

A gallon of milk (128 fl. oz) makes about 21 of those little 6 oz yogurt containers. Yoplait is around $0.60/container now. So, you've turned a $3/gallon jug of milk into $12 of yogurt.

Yes, it is better. The more "beasties" the better it is. I just have a much easier time getting the yogurt than the kefir myself, so I get teh best yogurt I can find. If the dog hesitates at the taste of it, but I doubt they will, mix in his salmon oil.

It's really that easy? and the ice chest is enough to hold the temp steady?

all our milk is pre-pasturized, do we still need to do the heating part?

Wow...

Thanks, Shody. He loves the stuff, fortunately.

The heating also conditions the milk proteins to set up more firmly. I suspect the only difference with not heating would be the yogurt would be a bit runnier.

The 114F incubation temperature favors a less acidic product and it seems to set up more firmly.

You will probably not get it as firm as the packaged versions. I think the commerical yogurts use a thickening agent, generally some kind of seaweed extract.

If you add dry milk, you can also make the yogurt firmer.

It's also interesting to plop some in colander lined with cheese cloth. I give the drippings to the dogs. The remainder makes a nice yogurt "cheese" spread.

I used to check the water bath temperature with every hour or so. I rarely had to add hot water to raise the temperture. However, my ice chest is one of those thick foam coolers that Omaha Steaks used to ship frozen meat -- it's at least 2" thick styrofoam. If you are using a regular ice chest, you may want to monitor the temp more closely.


http://www.eng.umd.edu/~nsw/ench485/lab8.htm