What treats to give your dog?

 Many owners think about what treats to give your dog. After all, the process of training and education goes much faster if you encourage your four-legged friend with a treat! We asked experts for their opinion on what treats should and should not be given to a dog.

Ekaterina Kuzmenko, nutritionist 

Dog treats should be:

1. Useful
2. delicious
3. Convenient.

When you buy a treat for your pet, give preference to treats that do not contain sugar, salt, artificial colors and flavors. It is important to choose the right taste of the treat so that the dog responds well and follows commands with great zeal. , the treat should be accessible in size so that eating it does not distract from the lesson. It will also be more convenient for you to use a treat that does not crumble or stain. Natural treats made from meat (chicken, lamb, beef, etc.) are best. They come in the form of dried and semi-moist fillets, sausages. It is convenient to grind them and put them in a purse or pocket. You can also opt for dog biscuits. 

Important! Any treat is an additional food. Its quality and quantity affects the health of your pet.

 Remember that the dog should not be given exercise after feeding. For allergic dogs, choose hypoallergenic treats from rabbit, turkey, duck, and lamb meat.Pictured: dog treats

Olga Krasovskaya, cynologist, trainer, head coach of the Belarus national agility team

It is better to choose the delicacy that the dog likes the most. It is very convenient to use boiled chicken stomachs – they do not crumble, they can be cut as finely as possible. You can use ready-made snacks. Dogs love Royal Canine Energy, but they are very high in calories. It is convenient to use ready-made dried offal, for example, lung is the most profitable and convenient option. It’s lightweight, so it’s cheap. At the same time, it breaks well and smells pleasantly of dried mushrooms. Dogs are very fond of bovine eggs (finely chopped before drying), tripe and intestines. The most terrible smell in the intestines. You can buy all this ready-made. If you want to tinker, you can prepare a treat for the dog yourself:

1. The liver is passed through a meat grinder, onions, carrots, garlic, a little salt, an egg, flour are added.
2. Spread it in a thin layer on a baking sheet and dry, then cut.  

 If you give your dog raw food, he will happily eat the unpeeled tripe. Of course, he is very smelly and gets his hands dirty, but he is quite capable of turning on his brain. My dogs love pancakes and cheesecakes.

If the dog is not a manic foodist, then it is good to change the delicacy, because the new one is always tastier. 

 For the smooth fox terrier, I use regular food, because a treat is used not for stimulation and motivation, but for calming down. All this can be done if there are no problems with the stomach and allergies.Pictured: dog treats 

Anna Lisnenko, veterinarian, cynologist 

First, the training treat should be comfortable. Secondly, it should suit the dog. The treat should not be too greasy and harmful. Sausages, cheeses and sweets will not work. Boiled offal is well suited as a treat for dogs. It is also a good idea to use ready-made store-bought treats, which are presented in large quantities in our pet stores.

Remember that the amount of treats eaten during training should be subtracted from the daily diet.

If the dog is allergic, you need to take this into account when choosing a treat and make sure that the composition does not contain foods that your pet is allergic to. It is necessary to take into account the dog’s taste preferences. Many treats that are sold in pet stores are fortified. This should be taken into account in order to maintain the vitamin and mineral balance of the body.In the photo: the dog is waiting for a treat

Tatyana Romanova, obedience and cynological freestyle trainer, behavioral correction instructor

Delicacies delicacies are different. In order to make our choice, we must decide for what purposes we give a treat: for training? To occupy a particularly active or anxious dog? To keep the dog busy and brush her teeth at the same time? Or just to make the dog feel good? For me, the golden rule when choosing treats is the minimum amount of artificial additives in the composition, and ideally, their complete absence. I can also say from my own experience that dogs do not really like dried hard cowhide bones. Well, bleached dried treats can do more harm than good. Of the long-lasting treats, I prefer natural dried bovine roots (penises) or tracheas. By the way, the trachea, thanks to the ribbed surface, cleans your pet’s teeth very well. Plus, it’s not very high in calories. These treats will keep your dog busy for a long time. Prolonged chewing has a calming effect, so long-lasting treats, in addition to the pleasure of taste, can be useful for dogs with problematic behavior. help him cope with coprophagia), bovine testicles, etc. I also really like Green Qzin treats – as a rule, they are all natural, without additives, quite soft, that is, they can be given as a pleasant bonus and used for training. The choice of this brand’s treats is huge and so appetizing that sometimes I can hardly restrain myself from crumbling some of the treats into my salad. 🙂 But for training it is necessary to use small treats (for medium and large dogs these are pieces of 5x5mm), not dry, so that the dog can swallow them without chewing or choking. And, of course, the golden rule for choosing treats for training: the dog must adore it.

At the beginning of training, it is recommended to use mixes, for example, combine 2 – 3 types of different treats, and set aside your favorite treat as a jackpot – to reward if your dog was great at the exercise.

I prefer to use natural products as treats for training: boiled beef heart or tripe, beef, turkey or chicken stomachs, chicken breast (if the dog is not allergic). I do not recommend using cheese or sausage to work with a dog as everyday treats – they contain too much salt, additives, and the cheese is also unnecessarily fatty. But as a jackpot, these products are quite suitable, because dogs usually adore them. The same GreenQzin treats are, for the most part, very convenient to use for training. By the way, this company has a line of treats specifically for training – they are very small in size, they do not need to be cut – I opened the package, scored a bite and started working. Now many global manufacturers have begun to produce treats specifically for training – as a rule, these are small, easy to chew and easy-to-swallow pieces. And if you like to cook and are ready to pamper your pet, then I will share the so-called life hack. Stores sell silicone pyramid pan baking mats – mats with small hollow pyramids, on the top of which meat is placed for baking so that the fat from it drains to the base of the pyramids. So, if you turn this rug over, we will see many small hollow holes that give us a whole field for activity.

For example, the easy dog ​​treat recipe

• baby food with meat or fish,
• 1 egg,
• a little flour
• you can add melted cheese.

 We mix all this mass, smear it on the rug, filling the hollow holes. We put it in the oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes – and we get a huge amount of handmade treats for training for our pet.