The majority of commercial dog treats on the market are to dogs as candy is to us. That is to say, too many dog treats are not good for your dog. There are several commercial dog treats that are good for your dog. They do come at a premium price. So what is a pet owner to do, especially a pet owner with several dogs?
Hot dogs to the rescue! We cut them or tear them up into small pieces. You can cut them up into small pieces and bake them at low heat in an oven until they are dry. Once they are dry you can use them in a treat pouch without the mess.
Hot dogs are both cheap and convenient, but are they bad for your dog? Like everything else used in excess, they are bad even for us. According to Wikipedia, the common ingredients are:
- Meat trimmings and fat, e.g. mechanically separated meat, pink slime, meat slurry
- Flavorings, such as salt, garlic, and paprika
- Preservatives (cure) – typically sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite
Here is where it gets tricky. The flavorings of all the hot dog packages I look at listed the word “flavorings” in the ingredients. That leaves us in the dark so we can only assume they contain garlic and paprika. Hot dogs are high in sodium, salt. High levels of salt are not good for us or our dogs. Onions which garlic is part of the onion family are bad for our dogs and so is paprika. Now just how bad is garlic for our dogs? I know some people give their dogs garlic to combat ticks, fleas, and other biting insects.
I am not a veterinarian or a nutritionist or anything else other than a dog owner. The general idea that hot dogs are bad for our dogs is based on both the “flavorings” and the “preservatives” in hot dogs. Provided we do not feed our dogs a whole hot dog, we cut them up and be conservative in treating our dogs, hot dogs are no worse than most commercial treats. As for me and my home, we will keep using hot dogs as treats. They are treats not a substitute for a meal.
I do want to mention the use of kibble or more commonly known as dry dog food as a source of treats. One, it is even cheaper than hot dogs, and two, you do not have to bake it to make it a clean alternative. The only downside I have with using kibble, not all our dogs respond well to it. Several will not take it as a treat. (are they overfed?) This makes kibble a low-value treat compared to hot dogs, making hot dogs a high-level treat. Your mileage may vary.
Tell us what you use for treats and comment below and share.
Mark