LIST of the most enjoyed food and non food dog treats in the dog park

As a professional dog walker, I take the dogs in my care very seriously. It also means that we get to trial a few treats with our clients if we wish, and they often get a windfall around Christmas time.

There are many dog food and dog treats companies run by people who don’t particularly like dogs or don’t even own a dog themselves. I find that kind of hypocritical if the company is putting out a lot of marketing to pretend how deeply they care or are connected with dogs. But then again I don’t make animated dog ads either .. OH – and that’s the reason I can write these articles FIRST HAND rather than posting’.

We openly acknowledge as often as possible in posts and on dog treat description pages for owners to observe their dogs after they have taken them for a big run, chomping into a new treat. We do this particularly with bones, where some over-zealous dogs can get into trouble.

It only makes sense that owners would have this ‘duty of care’, rather than pushing back on a manufacturer of natural dog treats that their dog doesn’t ‘do well’ on a particular treat. But I digress, only slightly. You will see what I mean when I reveal the top non food dog treats after the brief REAL dog treats segment below.

Main REAL dog treats for the park

You can of course take any meat based snack to the park that you like. I still know some people who go ‘old school’ with keeping cooked meat like chicken in their pockets for the walks, but as it only takes an hour or so for meat (not properly cooked and dried) at room temp to have an exponentially rise in bad bacteria, I often wonder if these ‘old school’ people know that risk they are bringing to their dogs? If they dont like raw feeding, then room temp left overs  can be just as ‘dangerous’.

So the number one treats I use for my large dog park (and visiting dogs) is beef liver and kangaroo liver (when they are lucky). The reason it is number one is that it is relatively cheap, 100% offal, rich in many nutrients including iron, and smelly enough to interest the most discerning of dogs.

A friend of mine usually carries one of the varieties of OUR  meatball range – currently beef liver balls (mostly beef meat with some chicken and a hint of liver with a minor share of wheat, or chicken balls or Roo balls.  These are not always ideal as a training treat if a dog takes a long time to chomp on them, but they are actually great for a dog walk, and feeding a pack, as they take a while for each dog to chew them.

Park found NON dog treat, treats

Trees are a great source of wooden objects for dogs to chew. These range from sticks that dogs chew or share chew, pine cones, big logs to carry (for mostly staffies) to cube kinds of off cuts that dogs love chewing the bark off.

Most dogs we see are fine chewing the ends of sticks, but of course vets caution against any stick tom foolery in case you have one of those dogs that can get anything jammed in their mouths.  There is almost zero nutrition in wood products, but apparently plenty of crunch time fun.

Most dogs don’t seen to go for any of the plant flowers in our park, but a few really love the grass particularly at the start of spring. Others prefer that it ferments for a while before eating. Pine bark mounds are often appreciated mainly for rolling in to get that special pine smell.

The worst non food dog treats that we usually try and hunt down and put out of the way of dogs is broken and discarded balls. While owners often pick up their dogs poos, many are happy to leave broken balls around. These are not only non bio-degradable, but many dogs find the rubber smell irresistible and attempt to break of chew and swallow pieces that lead to intestine obstructions and surgery or death.

When we go to the water’s edge different seasons wash up different sea going creatures. We watch out for puffer fish with poisonous spines and jelly fish, starfish etc. Some dogs like eating seaweed but that is mainly a rolling in function. Most dogs are not fast enough to catch anything that is actually alive, and of course live things don’t often smell as attractive to them.

CONCLUSION

So just like regular dog food (full of useless grains) the park has many benign wood based objects for dogs to seek out and eat.  We always recommend bringing some of our meat based properly dried dog treats with you, so you can perhaps satisfy a craving before they eat the found park material.