Dogs love snacks
Treats are also important for the dog as a tasty treat. However, they are apparently even more important for the dog owner. There are situations where you want to achieve something with your dog and that can easily be achieved by praising the food. It’s also good for the owner if the animal is happy about the treat. Some snacks are like chewing bones, which give the dog something to do. But are all snacks really healthy for dogs?
Yes, dogs can get fat too
You should just think carefully about how many treats are given. There are more and more overweight dogs, which is also noticed by veterinarians. As with humans, the excess kilos are often due to too much of a good thing. You could switch to consciously feeding “in between”. This does not mean that snacks can no longer be given. Just think about how many calories the snack has. For example, a bovine skin bone has around 700 kilocalories. For a medium-sized dog weighing 20 kg, which only consumes a good 1200 kilocalories per day, more than half of the daily requirement. The popular pig ears also have around 400 kilocalories, so they are real calorie bombs. And the dog also gets his “normal” meals and treats as praise during training and he rarely says no to them 🙂 95 kilocalories of energy alone more than necessary, which corresponds to three dog biscuits a day, leads to a weight gain of one per year half a kilo.
When does the dog get treats?
What can you do to be able to give the reward snacks with a clear conscience? The veterinarian advises that if you feed dry food, put some of it aside and use it as a treat. Otherwise, pay attention to low-calorie food. If the dog eats carrots or apple pieces, that’s ideal, you should just try it. It can happen that the dog doesn’t make any effort for something like that. You could lure your four-legged friend with dried lean meat, for example ostrich, horse or rabbit meat. 50 grams of ostrich meat contains 216 kilocalories, it’s not that low in calories, but you can’t get larger quantities that quickly. But basically every dog should earn his treats, please pay attention to that.
Light products as a treat?
Some snacks have the, often questionable, additional benefit of dental care. Care must be taken not to give too much; even light products, for example, have 70 kilocalories. Briefly about dental care: We recommend removal of tartar, DOG FIT by PreThis® WHITE dental plus. It works purely naturally through the power of algae, is simply added to the food and has almost no calories!
“Light treats” are also offered, which do not always indicate the energy content. It should not be more than 1.4 MJ/100 and a maximum of 5% crude fat. Unfortunately, not all light products meet these requirements. But here too you should remember: Extras always provide extra calories, even if fewer than normal snacks. In the end it all adds up. Light treats for in between meals can reduce the number of calories during the day, but you can’t give them more than normal treats.
So are treats healthy?
It depends. Please place the same quality standards on treats as you do on dog food, then they are basically okay. Whether it’s a light product or not doesn’t really matter, the quality has to be right first. However, the total number of calories fed per day is crucial for health. For example, if your dog gets a lot of rewards in the form of treats on a training day, the amount of calories should be deducted from the main meal, but also taking into account the actual exercise done. For example, if the dog moves a lot throughout the day during training, he may compensate for the gift of treats by burning more calories due to the movement. On other days, training is quieter with less exercise, and then the calorie consumption looks completely different. It may take a bit of calculation at first, but it’s definitely worth the effort. This is the only way the dog gets exactly the amount of calories it actually needs. We humans can sort this out for ourselves, the Hund depends on your help. Or do you want your dog to be as round as a ball? Certainly not.
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