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5 Tips For Choosing The Best Treats For Puppies

Whether you’d like to praise your dog for being a good boy or you’re training them, giving them dog treats would certainly be helpful. While there are a variety of dog treats out there in the market, you might confuse yourself about which one you should have for your fur baby. After all, you want to give them the best of the best. 

As you search for the best treats for puppies, ensure that they check out in all the required factors and are suitable for your puppy’s age, size, and health conditions. Moreover, listed below are the tips for choosing the best treats for puppies: 

  • Check The Ingredients

Of course, every dog treat would be safe for your puppy to consume. However, if your pup has a certain health condition, you might want to ensure that you double-check the ingredients and see if there might be allergens that your puppy could suffer from. You could confirm with his vet which ingredients they should avoid. 

Ideally, you should look for a puppy treat that uses all-natural ingredients for a healthier effect. The fewer ingredients the treat has, the better, as it simply means that it uses less unnecessary and additional fillers, which could be harmful, especially when taken in large amounts. In addition, you should ensure that the dog treat is full of protein and has less sugar and fat. This will help in keeping your dog healthy even though you’re giving them treats daily.

  • Treat Size

Since you’ll be using treats for your puppies, checking their size is highly important. When you give a treat that’s too large, they might end up spending the whole day trying to break them down and will take their mind off the training session. For a quick gulp and munch, you should look for a puppy treat that’s small, ideally with the size of an eraser. 

For small puppy treats, you can play around with puffies and crunchies. Puffies are bite-size, high in protein but low in fat and sugar, which would be great if you’re trying to make your dog lose some weight. A crunchy treat is also a bite-sized treat with a crunchy texture that could help to improve your puppy’s oral health. 

  • Check The Hardness

Puppies only have soft teeth and shouldn’t try to chew hard treats as it could break their delicate teeth. No matter how excited your puppy is to chew on something hard, you shouldn’t give them something extremely firm as their teeth could damage easily. 

To check the puppy treat’s hardness, you should push your nail down the treat. If you could see the nail mark, it means that the puppy treat is soft enough and is safe for your puppy to consume. Ideally, it would be best if you avoided treats that don’t leave a mark, no matter how much the store says it’s great for puppies. It’s better to be safe than be sorry. 

  • Purchase Various Dog Treats

Similar to humans, your puppy might have a different taste and preference when it comes to the food and treats that they eat. To save yourself from traveling back and forth to the pet store, you should purchase various dog treats and see which one would work best for your puppy.

You can play around with various textures, sizes, and flavors. As you give your puppy a treat, go from one variation at a time and identify which ones they like, love, and hate. That’ll help you set which kind of treats they should have according to their behavior. Moreover, it would be helpful if you don’t stick to a single treat as it could make them bored of the taste and want to have something new. 

  • Consider Slow Chewing Treats

While some people consider treats as something small that dogs could catch in the air during a training session, treats can come in larger but slow chewing sizes as well. However, when going for a larger size, ensure that it’s incredibly larger, similar to a dog bone, so there would be less chance of your little pup choking on their treat.

Going for a slow chewing treat would be great as a reward for good behavior or simply showing affection. You can give a piece to them while they’re lying beside you, staying in their well-designed dog area for long hours, or to help them pass the time, especially if you’re heading out longer than usual. 

The Verdict

Choosing the best puppy treat can be challenging, especially if you’re still exploring which flavors, they could possibly like and hate. No matter how frustrating it may be, you should explore options your puppy would enjoy having. After all, it’s the reward they get for obeying your commands, being a good trainee pup, or just keeping you happy for the day. 

 

Jeff Campbell