What do I look for when buying healthy dog snacks?

In due course, you naturally want to spoil and reward your four-legged friend with something tasty, but with a healthy dog snack! You can find many different snacks in supermarkets and pet stores. Difference in taste, composition, quality and much more. The choice is vast, but how do you know when a dog snack is healthy? In this blog, we explain what to look for when looking for a healthy treat.

Go for natural snacks

We believe that artificial additives have no place in dog food. Artificial aromas, colors, or flavors have no positive impact on the nutrients of a snack. In fact, some artificial additives can lead to unpleasant symptoms. Therefore, always choose a naturally formulated dog snack. Your dog really doesn't care if his snack is a green, red or brown color. It has to be tasty! Therefore, always check the packaging to make sure there are no artificial substances added, so you can be sure it is natural dog snack.

Dog snacks without grains

Grains in a dog snack can make it less digestible. Especially if your dog has a food intolerance or allergy to grains, a grain-free dog snack is necessary. Therefore, always look for grain-free dog snacks. Often it will already say on the front that it is grain-free. If this is not the case, it is best to check the ingredient list. Furthermore, you kill two birds with one stone with grain-free dog snacks, because grain-free is immediately also gluten-free. Favorable if your dog has a negative reaction to gluten.

Avoid meat byproducts

Meat byproducts are products also known as offal. They are products that are not used for human consumption. This does not mean that the products are not suitable for us, but we humans simply do not want to eat these products. You can think of animal byproducts as hooves, feathers, tendons, cartilage and bones. When snacks contain meat byproducts, you don't know what exactly is in the snack and whether it is good for your dog. Meat by-products have a lower digestibility than high-quality meat. Therefore, it is important that you always look at the composition of the dog snack. Look for a snack that has the exact protein source listed on it, for example: dehydrated lamb or duck meat meal and choose another snack when the composition says meat and animal byproducts. When you check the composition carefully, you will know exactly which protein source is included in the snack and you can reward your dog in a healthy way.

Extra tips

We are happy to share a few other tips and points to consider when looking for healthy dog snacks:

Pay attention to the size of the snack: a Beagle needs a different size snack than a Great Dane. Look for a snack that suits your dog. This is especially important when buying chewy snacks. These should not be too small, as there is then a chance that a dog will swallow the snack in one go.

Purchasing specific snacks: some dogs suffer from a food allergy, a food intolerance or have a sensitive gastrointestinal system. With these dogs, the search for specific snacks is very important. This is because the snacks must not contain ingredients that your dog can react negatively to. Therefore, always check the composition and rule out that the snacks contain ingredients that your four-legged friend cannot tolerate.

For example: on a package of dog snacks you will find the following text ''grain-free snacks with lamb for adult dogs.'' If the packaging does not state that the snacks are hypoallergenic, there is a chance that the snacks contain other protein sources besides lamb. For example, the snacks may contain chicken in addition to lamb. If you give these snacks to your dog and he is allergic to chicken protein he will not react well to the snacks.

Pay attention to the quantity: it is nice if you can spoil your dog with something tasty from time to time. But snacks should not be a large part of the diet, 10% at most.
Especially when your dog is on a diet, it is important not to give too many snacks. In addition, you can look for low-fat snacks for dogs that need to lose weight.

Snacks can be immensely delicious for your dog. You can give these as a reward or as a snack. You can then give reward candy or dried chews. Dried chewy snacks be more fun for in between meals. Reward treats, in turn, is more fun as a real reward for your four-legged friend!

Lots of dogs already enjoy Riverwood every day. Would you also like your dog to feast on our delicious foods and are you curious which variety would suit your dog best? Then answer a few questions here and order an inexpensive sample pack right away.