Single Ingredient Dog Treats are extremely popular these days. We do sell a several single ingredient dog treats.
We believe single ingredient dog treats serve an important function. However at the same time we think too much emphasis has been placed on single ingredient dog treats.
We feel like this is partly from the fact that many foods and treats have an ingredient list as long as the War and Peace.
This kind of reaction is like a pendulum swinging, but the pendulum hasn’t settled in the middle.
The middle in this case would be single species dog treats or limited ingredient dog treats.
There is no legal definition of limited ingredient treats or food; so it is up to each company and consumer to define what limited ingredient means. This means your definition of what you consider to be limited ingredient might be different than that of a company or another individual.
Benefits of Single Ingredient Treats
- Single ingredient treats can be a great option especially for treat intensive training sessions as you don’t want to feed too much organ meat, and deal with the possibility of diarrhea.
- Single ingredient dog treats are also perfect during a diet elimination trial to determine allergies and for dogs that have a sensitive stomach. This could also apply to single species treats.
- Single Ingredient treats are also great for keeping track of what and how much of an ingredient you are giving, as it easier to remember instead of having to think oh this treat is 15% Liver or 10% Green Tripe. They are also beneficial when trying to find an offending allergen, or intolerance.
The very benefit of Single Ingredient Treats is also its biggest downside; as single ingredient treats have a very specific nutritional value.
One of our key believes is in providing a wide range of nutrients. That rotating between a variety of treats, chews, and toppers is very important for maintaining the health of our dogs and cats. That we should be providing as much variety as we can. So we can avoid giving too much or too little of specific nutrients.
We are all guilty of not properly rotating between foods, treats, chews and food toppers. We know our dogs have preferences. We are all guilty of grabbing treats for the same bag day after day, or always buying the same treats. We are all guilty of not rotating between different treats or making sure we give the occasional liver or heart treat.
This is the benefit of limited ingredient treats, or if there is an allergy single species treats. They can provide a slightly wider range of nutrients. Which we believe can help mitigate the effects of feeding too many of the same treats.
While the prey model diet is deficient in many nutrients it does provide a wide range of nutrients which makes it in our opinion an excellent option as far as treats and toppers are concerned.
Because if we are all being honest with ourselves we are all probably guilty to a certain extent of providing more than the 10% of our dogs daily calories from treats, chews, and toppers.
We believe that this is one of many contributing factors as to why canine and feline obseity is becoming a rapidly growing epidemic.
This is also why unlike many other brands our food toppers except for the Salmon food topper are not single ingredients. They are a mixture of Muscle Meats and Organ Meats. The muscle meats are also not from the same part of the body as leg meat has a different nutritional profile than breast meat for example.
This is also why we have our primal treats, and box that are modeled after a prey model diet. So that you can ensure your dogs are getting a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids in their treats.
This is why we think the focus needs to be more on limited ingredient instead of single ingredient. This also requires we as a society come to an agreement on what the definition of limited ingredient actually means. Keeping treats to the same species. Part of the reason single ingredient treats have exploded is that many people are seeking out single ingredient treats because of an allergy or intolerance.
We also believe in sneaking in ingredients that have potential to be beneficial to our dogs. Ingredients that our dogs would normally turn their head.
That is why we have treats such as Beef Heart and Beetroot, turkey watercress and cayenne, lamb and spearmint, Duck and Bok Choy, lamb and kale, lamb heart Turmeric and black pepper, beef and hawthorn, Salmon and Herb etc.
These treats allow us to sneak in ingredients into our dogs diets that have the potential to aid in our dogs health.
We make our infused honey for that very specific purpose so that we can sneak herbs into our dogs food without them noticing it.
There was a time where we would try to sneak powder into our Akitas food and he just wouldn’t eat. He also didn’t trust his food for several weeks after that, and wouldn’t even touch his food if Samantha was the one feeding him.
By infusing them with Honey or mixing them into his treats he no longer suspects that we tainted his food with some herb or supplement.
Ultimately we believe we need to focus more on limited ingrdient treats, or single species treats instead of just single ingredient dog treats.
