Your dog or cat obviously loves a tasty treat, but like humans, too many snacks are not good for them. In this blog, you can read all about healthy snacking!
Dog snacks and cat treats: what do I need to check?
Firstly, check the number of calories: there is a recommended calorie intake for dogs and cats. This includes both daily meals and snacks. Snacks may only amount to 10% of the daily number of calories. So get counting!
And always read the list of ingredients. Many snacks are packed with unnecessary ingredients, like sugar and salt. Also avoid artificial additives, like colourings, aromas and flavourings. Our snacks are always good: packed with meat and fish with no artificial additives. You can also treat your dog to a chew bone: not just tasty, but it will keep them busy and look after their teeth! For cats, we have delicious delicups, packed with healthy ingredients.
How often may I give my pet snacks?
It's very easy to succumb to the pleading eyes of your dog or cat, but snacks must always be a reward for pets. A snack is ideal motivation during training to teach them good behaviour, but again: not too many. Many people reward a pet with a snack whenever they perform a command well. The problem then is that your pet only performs the command for the snack and not for you. So, vary how you reward your pet during training. One time a snack, the next time reward them by making a big fuss of them.
You can train good behaviour with food, but we unintentionally also reward a lot of bad behaviour with food too. Take begging, for example. If your cat or dog regularly gets something under the table at dinner, you can be sure that they will make a habit of begging. And don't give snacks at regular times, because this is very likely to lead to begging. By rewarding them for this bad behaviour, they will think that they will always get something when they do this.
