When it undermines their otherwise healthy diet and is potentially harmful. These days, people are, thankfully, becoming a lot more conscious of what they are feeding their dogs at mealtimes. Unfortunately, this carefulness often gets abandoned when choosing what treats to give throughout the day.

Looking for healthy dog treats with simple, natural ingredients that you can trust? Look no further than the TP Feeds range.

Look at the ingredients of your dog’s treats in the same way that you would your dog’s main diet. Do you actually understand what all the ingredients are, or does it mainly look like a list of scientific elements? What is the first, and therefore most prevalent, ingredient? Is there actually any meat in there, or is there merely ‘flavouring’?

6 Ingredients To Avoid When Buying Dog Treats

Many dog treats that are popular on the market today contain little to no meat. If they do contain meat, it is usually identified as ‘meat and animal derivatives’, perhaps with a minimum percentage of a named meat. Avoid this, particularly if your dog has known sensitivities. I discuss this in more detail here:

Meat And Animal Derivatives, And Why They Should Be Avoided

In fact, this is true of many ingredients in dog treats. Companies simply do not tell you what exactly the ingredients are. Alarm bells should be ringing at this point. ‘Cereals’, ‘derivatives of vegetable origin’, ‘various sugars’… This tells you very little yet fulfils the company’s legal obligation – and leaves the door wide open for them to regularly change the ingredients within those vague terms, so that they can use the cheapest available at the time of manufacturing.

What colour are your chosen dog treats? Are they a mixture of bright colours? Why? This colouring is not there for your dog’s benefit; they can only see in blues and greens, it doesn’t make them taste any better and it doesn’t bring any nutritional value. It is purely for your benefit from a marketing standpoint. Colourful biscuits attract people more than plain ‘boring’ brown ones.

In short, select your dog’s treats with the same ethos as when you choose your dog’s main recipe. Clear, healthy, understandable ingredients are key. You wouldn’t feed your child healthy, balanced meals and then top them up with sugar-filled, fat-rich and potentially harmful snacks in between, would you?

This is what I pride myself on at TP Feeds. My treats complement my nutritionally beneficial main recipes.

Explore the range here.

Related Articles:
Dog Treat Recipes: Sweet Potato Chews
Dog Treat Recipes: Chicken Jerky
Dog Treat Recipes: Peanut Butter Oat Balls