Back when Pom Pom was younger and actually had teeth, we’d buy those 50-packs of rawhide chewsticks from Target. She loved them–chewed on them all day until they turned into pinky-sized drool-nubs that were left for dead on the floor until they ended up stuck to the bottom of my foot.

But we kept on buying these things because little Pom loved them so much. Then one day we realized how bad the little white devils were for dogs, and we stopped buying them.

Sorry, Pom.

We’ve come across plenty of all-natural rawhide alternatives throught the years. We just bought the dogs a pack of Simply Sweet Potato by Dogswell. The package has all those great buzzwords like “No artificial colors/flavors,” “Good source of Vitamins” and of course, the all-important “Rawhide Alternative.”

Six dollars and 99 cents later, Cindy’s popping open the bag for our two eager pooches.

Well, as far as taste goes, these dried sweet potato slices seemed to be a hit. Casper had his finished in just a couple of minutes. Pom Pom has a tougher time with chewable stuff these days, so she worked on a small piece for awhile, then it mysteriously disappeared (any time this happens, it means Casper gobbled it up the second Pom wasn’t looking).

I was hoping these things would last longer–the nice thing about rawhide is that it keeps dogs busy for a long, long time (unfortunately, that’s the only nice thing about rawhide). So I can’t really say it’s a rawhide alternative…just a treat that last longer than five seconds.

Pros: All-natural; dogs seem to like the taste.

Cons: Not good for dogs with fragile teeth; not much of a “rawhide alternative.”