Gourmet Dog treats are still meat and NOT Pumpkin Spice !

Considering this is April, you might think this is an April Fools prank, but unfortunately its real. After spearheading a campaign against grains being a major component in dog treats and dog foods, the latest NON MEAT trend for dog treats is soon to hit Australia.

Again well meaning (and bad meaning marketing people) are trying to extend the dubious value of pumpkin spice for human treats to dog treats.

There are many people waiting to make a buck out of your dog, so every NEW TREND should be evaluated carefully to see if it harms your dog, or in the least is neutral (no benefit) to your dog.

I purposely don’t load my dog upon any calories or carbs that they don’t need, as I need all of their diet room for actual nutrition.  I don’t feed my dog as a hobby or something to make me feel warm and nice. I have spent years researching and applying solid carnivore feeding for my carnivore dog.  By the way, if you own a domestic dog, it is also 95% carnivore.

The whole pumpkin spice craze has been a marketers dream for humans and of course, now they can see with all the words written about it they should stretch that trend as far as they can. We don’t see any less or any more value than if you were feeding your dog potato, sweet potato or broccoli. Sure they provide fibre energy from carbs (sugars), but that is not the main way that carnivores ideally get their energy or nutrition.

So I was actually surprised when one blog decided to go to the effort of asking a neutral vet about the trend.

“It’s a human fad, to be honest,” Mandy Ball, a vet at Westway Veterinary Group in Newcastle, quickly concludes.  If food is tasty dogs will enjoy it, but the pumpkin spice flavour is a human marketing ploy. Smell matters much more to dogs, so if something smells good a dog will eat regardless,” REF 1

And there-in lies the biggest deceit of almost all dog food manufactures using sugar and fats to fool dogs into eating grains.  If they can do that with raw wheat, they can of course do it with any bland substance including cardboard and pumpkin spice.

” Essentially, giving your dog something that sounds delicious to you is a waste of time. However adorable your pooch may seem, it’s a blood-thirsty carnivore at heart and would much prefer something that smells meaty.”  REF 1

Imagine a vet telling you that?

“You’re better off giving them some lean meat in moderation,” says Ball. The best diet for a dog is just like a human’s. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but high quality and balanced. ” REF 1

And added to that is that a human is a true omnivore, and a dog is a majority carnivore.  High quality usually means meat based, and balanced means meat, bones, and offal.

By all means, feed your dog LEAN MEAT, but you can tell the vet was raised on dog food sponsored nutrition school for telling you that you need to feed a dog meat “in moderation”.  Notice they never say feed “grain in moderation”  That is the sticker that should be on every dog food and dog treat pack, yet the good vet felt they needed to say restrict meat to your dog, even though before they were quoted saying ” it’s a blood-thirsty carnivore at heart”.  Conflict much ??

Here is an article I have written about raw meat dog diets. But if you are happy with your pellet or canned diet .. adding a 100% meat dog treat, just tops up the bioavailable protein that a dog requires, making a commercial food diet, MORE BALANCED.

Reference

REF 1    http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/dog-treats