Avenue K9

Ever open up a bag of dog treats and say to yourself: “Holy &%^$ these treats smell amazing! I almost want to eat one! (But you don’t, of course, because that would be weird, and I’ve never actually taken a bite of a dog treat. Ever. Never. Yep. I swear.)

The Wellness company makes a dog treat called Well Bites. These treats are super soft and smell SUPER delicious. Sometimes I’ll just open the bag and take in the smell–I can admit this to you because chances are, you are also an obsessive dog-owner and by law you are required to accept my weird dog-related quirks.

Back to the treats.

They’re made of lamb, salmon, oatmeal, blueberries, sweet potatoes, apples and carrots. No by-products or filler ingredients.

In addition to being soft, the treats are nice and big (about one square-inch), which is great because I can easily break them up into small pieces and make the bag last longer.

An 8-oz bag of Wellness Well Bites is about $8. One bag  lasts about a month with our two little dogs, so for us, it’s well worth the price–plus, if you’ve looked at dog treat prices lately, even the crappy treats are getting pricier, so do your dogs a favor and buy the good stuff!

Buy them. Smell them. Refrain from eating them.

Remember that Welch’s commercial with the two little girls reading off and comparing the juice ingredients? One couldn’t pronounce the chemical names and the other girl read the organic ingredients without a hitch — both equally cute yet incredibly annoying. Well, I couldn’t help but notice that Beary’s Sojo treats have human grade ingredients, as well. And they’re not hard to pronounce either unless you’ve never heard of rye, which is probably the first reason why I went ahead and bought them. Interestingly enough, the cool thing is that because they’re human grade, I can actually try them too, ha! Yum. A few dog treat reviews ago, I talked about how surprisingly good Newman’s Own organic dog treats tasted. Turns out, Sojo’s are 10 times better! Even the polka dot packaging is superb… that’s probably the second reason why I shelled out seven bucks, though, I must admit the dog illustration on the cover looks more like a cow. Moo. It’s a bit hard to tell if Beary loves them. I know he likes them, but I’m not 100% convinced that he absolutely LOVES them. That’s cool though. More for me =P

Pros: Delicious. nice packaging.

Cons: A bit too big for training a little dog.

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 just in case you wanted to watch one of those Welch’s commercials…

I know I said that rawhide products are the Holy Grail of dog treats earlier this week, but if there’s a close second, the golden crown has to go to these Redbarn beef products. Petco and Petsmart seem to sell the braided beef sticks, but I actually purchase almost all of Beary’s things at a nearby store called Pets To Go, which seems to carry an abundant amount of beef products. It’s ridiculous, really. Everything there is categorized by three sizes — small, medium and large dogs. Now even though Beary’s just a 15-pounder, I usually buy him the medium sized products. They tend to last longer, since he doesn’t really pig out on them. Whenever I go out for my weekly dog treat run, I’m always looking for three things: the braided beef stick, the beef disc and the beef bar bell.  Specifically, I make sure that they still look relatively fresh and not over-dried (solid colors and not too translucent) and that they don’t smell funny — believe me, sometimes they do… a not-so-pleasant experience when Beary goes into his intensive chewing session and you can smell the putrid beef fumes from across the room. Since I’m not a dog expert or dietitian, Beary doesn’t get a whole lot of beef treats every week. Typically, I’ll give him a beef stick that’ll last him about 7-9 days; otherwise, I try to balance the rest of his food with something more nutritious. He seems to like that just fine.

Pros: ultimate dog satisfaction, braided beef sticks last pretty long

Cons: can become somewhat pricey if you have a large dog, since those braided beef sticks can cost you nearly seven bucks a pop

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From Wikipedia.org: Rawhide is a hide or animal skin that has not been exposed to tanning and thus is much lighter in color than treated animal hides (leather).

I know exactly what you’re thinking… “That sounds sooooo good. I want some.”Ha. And your dog would probably have to agree with you on that.  Almost every dog owner I know knows that the rawhide is the Holy Grail of dog treats. They last forever (if you have a terrier) and they keep your furry friend preoccupied for a good time, while you’re off to doing more humanly things like vacuuming your home or checking snail mail. What I have discovered, though, is that there seem to be different tiers of rawhide. I’d have to say, being the novice dog owner I am, that I started off on the bottom — the plain white rawhides. Then, my sister mailed me a bag of Milk-Bone Dingos, which were special bacon-wrapped rawhide sticks. Beary’s thoughts … “Delicious!” After I ran out of them, which took about two or three months, I couldn’t find them anywhere. But I did find an even better replacement –rawhide chew bones with meat! A-ha! Beary’s thoughts … “Delightful. Just exquisite. Now can have the rest of the bag?” So when in doubt, grab a bag of rawhide bones (with meat, if you can) and your dog will love you for it.

Pros: Cheap at around five bucks for a week’s worth of treats (check your local grocery store’s pet section), good, gets the job done

Cons: I’ve read about some rawhide treats staining light carpets, so do read the back label of whatever treat you’re buying if you’re concerned about your carpet.

[ratings]

You can never get too many treats…right? I know that’s what Cali thinks, but I always wonder how many is too many. She was a pretty hefty 83 pounds at her last vet visit, which is supposedly a pretty healthy weight for her size and age. She usually eats one or two bowls of food a day (we leave the bowls of dry food out for her all the time) and probably has a bone or rawhide every other day. The treats though– they’ve gone a little overboard in my opinion. Here’s a run down of her daily treats…

When Feebs leaves for work in the morning:

• A Kong filled with peanut butter
• 2 Milk Bone treats
• 1 Milk Bone chewy treats (chicken flavored)
• 2 Canine Carry Outs (small bacon flavored treats)
• 1 FURminator treat

After her afternoon walk with Dave:

• 1 Milk Bone chewy treat

Before bed snack:

• 1 Canine Carry Out (small bacon flavored treat)

As you can see, she’s definitely a momma’s girl, and Feebs can’t resist the temptation to spoil her. Most treat packages that we have seen actually say a dog of her size can have anywhere from 4-8 treats a day, so maybe we aren’t that far off. Letus know what you think: How many treats are too many?

Milk-Bone ORIGINAL Dog Treats: They look like miniature baked corndog slices and Beary absolutely loved them from early on. Even to this day, he’ll sit politely in anticipation for a chance at one of those tossed treats, which are made with Real bone marrow. In fact, there are only two minor drawbacks, the first being that they’re completely messy. A quick chomp into one of these suckers breaks them into a thousand red particles, despite the claim that it produces “fewer crumbs.” And yes, those crumbs will have you reaching for the vac in about 0.5 seconds, because they’re bit of a pain to manage when they’re spewed all over a light carpet. The second drawback is more of an issue for smaller puppies. Beary couldn’t quite chew the whole treat when he was a smaller puppy, so my attempt to halve them broke the treats into a thousand red particles spewed all over the carpet. Yay. Would I say it’s a “Great Treat For Training”? Probably not for small puppies, even though the endorsement box advertises a cute Westie. Still, it’s probably one of those rare treats that Beary could probably make a full meal out of, if it were up to him.

Pros: Beary says they taste great. They’re also available at major grocery stores such as Safeway, Bel-Air, Raley’s and Vons.

Cons: Uber-messy treats. They’re about six bucks for a small 10oz box.

Final Verdict
Price: 3
User-Friendliness: 5
Durability: N/A
Doggie Enjoyment: 5

[ratings]

Somehow I can’t elude the fact that virtually all dog treats are being marketed as premium dog treats. So we move on to the second-most used buzz word of the day – organic. Is organic really better? Scientifically speaking, I’m 99.99% certain that I’m 99.99% uncertain. And I’m sure, from your dog’s POV, it probably doesn’t matter much. But what I find fascinating, at this juncture – yes, I used juncture – is that I am able to pronounce all the ingredients of these treats, which, in light of this good news, leads me to conduct my own non-scientific experiment: Do they taste good? Answer: A resounding Yes! And I would probably argue that they probably taste as good, if not, the same as Dustin’s Mutt Munchers. Suffice to say, they’re pretty darn good albeit being very wheatie. They even smell decent. Even though I only ate one of these treats, I can safely say that your dog will probably like these, too.

Now, to my tangents… I had no idea that the fine actor Paul “Pa” Newman from Road to Perdition had a peculiar side-gig selling dog treats, out of all products. What surprised me even more upon further investigation was that he sells a boatload of other random perishables such as marinara, lemon juice and, yes, even salsa! Strange. And did you know he’s donated more than $150 million to thousands of charities worldwide in supporting animals? Neither did I! But it’s written right there on the packaging! Case in point: You should watch Road to Perdition, because Pa sells delicious organic treats and saves animals.

Pros: tastes good, comes in four flavors (chicken, cheese, vegetable, peanut butter… I ate the chicken kind) and not too pricey at around four bucks

Cons: you’ll have to break the medium-sized treats in half if you’re training a small dog

Final Verdict
Price: 5
User-Friendliness: 4
Durability: N/A
Doggie Enjoyment: 5

[ratings]