Bon Appetit?

Industrial dog chews and possible alternatives

“What kind of treats are you feeding?”

This question reaches me regularly.

It’s quite simple, really:

I follow my feeding method consistently.

That’s why the verpinscht Family only offers treats that consist of 100% meat.

Without a lot of frills and frills. That’s what my dogs really like best.

If it may be a bigger chew, then we don’t have the commercial chewing fun: The things that are shaped like bones for marketing reasons and sold as a “healthy chew”. But they are anything but healthy!

The classic: cowhide bones

…and how they are made

To make the animal skin last as long as possible, it is soaked in a chemical bath and bleached at the same time. This gives the bone its familiar light yellowish skin colour. Or would you buy a black chewing pass for your dog?

With further chemicals (e.g. an ash-alkaline solution) remaining hair and fat are removed from the animal skin. Have you ever wondered how animal skin maintains its bone shape? The animal skin is pressed into the appropriate form and with a lot of glue the form is then preserved. Oh yes! And the aromas. Very important. We must not forget them. After all, your dog should find all this shit tasty. But that will prove difficult if the animal skin as such is no longer existent. So we soak the product in flavours that smell very attractive to the dog. That way the natural product becomes a real chemical bomb.

The healthy chewing fun for dogs

It does not have to be an artificially produced chewing bone to give your dog the ultimate chewing experience. I often feed air-dried animal products such as beef lung, turkey and chicken necks or dried meat strips. If the chewing fun is to last longer, then beef scalp plates, beef ears and bull whips are the absolute long-running favourites here. 100% natural, no chemicals, no fuss. Simple. Delicious. Healthy.Cheap! It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

Would you like something fresh?

Dogs love bones. Obviously they do, why else would we find the bone on all dog products? Be it on blankets, on dog beds, on dog tags. On toys or on dog leashes. We associate the bone as a symbol for the dog. So why don’t you just give your dog a bone? It can be so simple.

If your dog is used to raw meat and raw bones, then a chicken leg or a duck neck can be a tasty chew. Especially in summer I like to feed bones in frozen form. But attention: Please everything in moderation! Every day the dog should not eat such a frozen bone, so that he does not get gastritis (inflammation of the stomach lining). But in the hot summer days absolutely ok and also here a frozen bone is a healthy alternative to the industrial and often sugary dog ice’.

You should not feed large, weight-bearing bones (for more information on bone feeding, click here), but under supervision, there is absolutely nothing to prevent the dog from gnawing the excess meat off these bones. This is a great activity. It may not look like it, but it can be quite a feat for your dog. Smaller dogs in particular are fully engaged (or pawed) to get the meat off the bones.

So your dog is kept busy, physically busy and he still tastes good!

To find the golden mean

Of course, as a dog owner you don’t have to be more papal than the pope and no, you are not a bad dog owner if there is something out of the bag. After all, we as humans do not eat healthy food every day and like to eat a bag of chips or a bar of chocolate. But! It’s all about quantity and pure chemical clubs really don’t belong in any stomach – no matter whether they are of human or animal origin.

The verpinscht Family also offers a delicious salmon paste in a tube or a liver sausage snack in a bag – but all in moderation and quite irregularly. So it moves within the frame and for the dogs it remains a very special snack.