LONG CHEWING  DOG Treats

This dog treat category is for the BIG dog, and the big chewers out there.  We are talking about NATURAL dog treats here for the most powerful dogs around.

HOWEVER, there is still room for the smaller dogs in here.  A long chewing treat, or a PRE-OCCUPIER treat is just one that is likely to last a long time, and keep a dog fascinated with it instead of being distracted enough to bark at dogs outside the fence or rip your furniture or garden apart.

But here is something that many owners don’t figure into the dog treat equation. Long or big chewing treats are as varied as the animals that they come from. You don’t have to be a BIG dog to appreciate a big chewing treat. You just have to be fascinated by the odour, the shape, the texture and yes the crunch.

Long chewing treats are truly supposed to satisfy your dog’s primal urge to rip apart meat and crunch down on bones. They don’t have to actually accomplish these things each time they get a new LONG chewing treat, but the potency of the smell of the treat should drive them wild enough that they are not wanting to let go of it for a while.

This category is composed of treats from many various meat types, but these can mostly be categorized into three types that we will expand upon below:

• MID SCALE long chewing dog treats
• LONG chewing treats – The jerkies
• BIG/ LONG chewing treats – the dog bone story
• NON MEAT, Non Bone long dog treats

MID SCALE long chewing dog treats

If you have tried all of these kinds of treats before, you will know instinctually how to rank them. Are they the right size, the right kind of animal smell that you think your dog likes? Will they preoccupy them, will they satisfy them?

Will they provide any decent nutrition?

A lot of people choose bully stick varieties, or the much more affordable and lower fat roo tail tips. The great news is that these are 100% single ingredient products. All natural. The bully sticks are all meat, but can be at least medium in fat level.

The kangaroo tail tips are going to be easier for most dogs to snap off, and do have a blunt bone in the centre that is unlikely to be a sharp fracture hazard, but of course that means gram for gram, you aren’t getting as much straight meat.

The pig’s ear and jumbo pork rolls provide long chewing for mid and large dogs alike, but does your dog like pork, and are you into animal skin or animal meat treats? Sometimes you just have to try a treat to see what they like.

LONG chewing treats – The jerkies

If you are interested in relatively long chewing for small and medium sized dogs chewing treats look at the MEDIUM chewer dog treat category that includes many of the 100% meat natural jerkies.

This is where we go out on a bit of a limb. A hard-core chewer is not going to spend a long time on kangaroo jerky long or Kangaroo jerky natural strips. And not all roo jerky long pieces are incredibly long. But what the roo jerky is, is lower fat than beef and chicken usually, and single pieces, so the natural striation of the muscle keeps these pieces together far better than composite treats (that include grains).

Young or mature dogs will often find these milder long chewing treats a decent challenge (without risking their teeth) and they will get enough of a purchase on them, that they won’t walk always bored and frustrated. And for every gram they rip off the treat, another morsel of nutrition is added to their daily food. Bonus.

We hope you and your dog find what you are looking for in this category, and if you hav any questions, get in contact with us.

BIG/ LONG chewing treats – the dog bone story

This is the ‘elephant in the room (and no we don’t sell elephant bones). Bones are one of the most natural foods that wild dogs and their ancestor wolves would get hold of. After they eat the meat, and the succulent nutrition rich organs, the bones would be left over for the lower members of the pack to tackle.

Bones suitable for domestic dogs would take a long time to break down for the smaller or older/ younger members of the pack, but when they did, they would get the very rich marrow nutrition. High quality animal fat, meant high energy, and an advantage to survival.

That is the kind of ancestral memory that a dog deals with when eating a bone. And even the smallest dogs, far removed in shape and jaw power from their wolf ancestors can still share the dream, even If they are unable to make much of a mark on the bone.

Just the value of chewing the ends of the softer bones (like pork or lamb), can give them immense satisfaction. Or maybe they are more suited to the medium chewer treat bones like the kangaroo ribs or tail pieces?

We have a video of Shine the rottweiler eating a whole kangaroo clod bone (the hardest bone available), but that doesn’t have to be the way. MANY dogs just crave the ‘idea’ of the dog bone and challenge.

The downsides for bones of course are potential for teeth damage or swallowing large bone splinters, but this is for those dogs that don’t bother chewing before swallowing. And like we say for all dog food, and all treats, observe how your dog eats something to gauge how they are likely to go when unsupervised (like when you go to work).

Bones are not for every dog, but they are at one end of the hardness long chewing scale.

Whatever you do, especially with hard or long chewing treats, make sure you at least initially superverse how your dog eats these to ensure that they chew properly before swallowing.

NON MEAT, Non Bone long dog treats

The best well know ones of these are the beef tendons, and the cow hooves (empty), or stuffed with roo, beef or chicken mince. Again owners need to know what will keep their dogs occupied, and if their dogs know how to eat these kinds of harder treats, safely.