The problem of healthy dog treats and humans

Its all great doing the old “do as I say, not as I do trick” to children, but as they grow older, they can gain the ability to do whatever they like.

When it comes to food, parents often want the best for their children. But this assumes that they know what the best, that they can be bothered buying and  making the best. And of course if “the best” actually means the most healthy or just the most delicious.  Or occasionally both.

Why Humans struggle to feed healthy dog treats

If you pay a fortune for “quality dog food” you would expect that it is the most healthy on the market.  This forgoes any consideration that most dog food has much less than 50% meat in it.

But the more premium dog foods do have more vitamins and minerals and little more organic supplements like blueberries in them. This is all well and good – unless you have any belief that dogs might have evolved from wolves and still find meat the most nutritious their diet.

OK – if you can suspend all of that belief, and you want something ultra special as a snack or treat or gift for your dog what do you choose?

Here in lies the rub.  If you are going out to buy something special, a snack, an entree, and
houvre derve for a human that expresses your love of them, how special you want them to feel, invariably it will have expensive packaging. You will buy something very ornate and over-processed and it will scream that its an “indulgence”.  Invariably most people believe that its not a real human treat unless its bad for you, so bad you have to have it in moderation, making it even more rare.

See, humans very rarely equate a HUMAN TREAT, with something natural, unprocessed and very healthy for a human.

The truth about why we choose BAD dog treats for our dogs

I get that its never intentional.  But after you have spent all of that money on the ‘healthy’ grain stuff as dog food that some vet told you was exceptional, you want to break free and act a little crazy.  Give your dog a pink cupcake full of more wheat right?    A doggy treat of MORE grain, but better packaging that boring old natural treats that were the dogs original ONLY dog food.

Habits and human psychology are hard to beat when it comes to ‘spoiling our dogs’.

If you equate expense purely with the quality of the treat, you might consider some competitors treats very exotic.  If the increases in wholesale meat prices keep rising in Australia you may soon find that the higher retail price of real meat dog treats, starts nudging them into the ‘special treat’ category.

Very few customers seem to understand its the LACK of additives that makes for the best dog treats.  And especially the lack of wheat or any other grains.  You dont have to completely give up wheat (after all most dog food has carbs as its major ingredient), so  15% wheat on some of our range is a significant step up on dog health.

But you know how people appreciate low sugar or no sugar when it comes to calorie controlled soft drinks?  Well this doesn’t apply when they buy dog treats. some people ask us about low fat treats, and if your dog has pancreatitis we understand.  but they also dont realise the BIG difference between natural animal fats for dogs and vegetable fats being of secondary quality.

THE bottom line on healthy dog treats

The more meat the better, the more pure the treat, the more diverse.  As long as your dog isn’t allergic to a meat, getting more meat into its diet is pretty essential for long term health.

And while we dont spend a fortune on packaging, we actually think its what’s inside the bag that is the most important.  And if you really want to treat your dog with something exotic we always have a range of 100% meat based dog treats like octopus, bully sticks and roo tendons that should form a normal part of a dogs diet anyway.