Are dog biscuits a healthy food?
This question has a simple answer, some yes and others rather not. As with human cookies, some are made industrially with inexpensive and little recommended products, while other cookies are artisan and made with completely natural products.
There are very healthy and recommended dog biscuits, which are made only with natural products and in an artisan way. In our opinion they are cookies or snaks, as you prefer to call it, of very high quality.
On a personal level, I don’t always use cookies as prizes, although I do use them quite often because they are healthy and easy to carry. I always use these dog biscuits because they are simply completely natural.
What are the different prizes that we can use?
We should not limit ourselves exclusively to cookies, there are many other foods that we can use as prizes. Some healthier than others, as we will see next….
These are the different prizes that we can use with our dogs:
- Sausage frankfurt: In reality sausages are not “healthy” for dogs or humans, since they contain preservatives and various chemicals that are better not to talk about. But we can break a sausage into small pieces and give them to you as prizes when appropriate.
- Fruit: Only certain fruits and always free of seeds and stones. It is a very healthy way of rewarding them, although also without abusing so that they do not have digestive disorders. Here you can see what types of fruit are good for you: Healthy fruits for dogs.
- Feed balls: In reality they can also be used as a prize, but let’s be real, it would be like giving them exactly the same … since it is the same as having breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is better to use different foods than your feed.
- Dog biscuits: If they are made with natural products and free of preservatives and chemicals, they are an excellent option to reward our dogs.
Any type of healthy food can be used as a reward in our dogs. We simply have to assess when to give them a prize and try to vary it every few weeks, so that they don’t always get bored of eating the same prizes.
When should we give our dog a prize and when should we not?
It is very important to know how to give him some dog biscuits / treats and when not to, since we could confuse our dog. We should only give them prizes when they behave correctly, let’s see some examples.
We can give you an award when:
- When they obey our instructions, whether we are walking or training them.
- When we want to distract your attention, like when we walk past another dog that I usually growl at a bit. After walking past him and only if he has behaved well and has not growled, we will give him a prize.
We should never give them an award when:
- When they are nervous or overly accelerated, wait until they are completely relaxed.
- When they do nothing but want to give them some food as a reward, we should never give them a reward for doing nothing. We can tell our dog to sit down, and then reward him as a reward, for example.
- When they do something wrong or misbehave, we should never give them a reward, because they think we are rewarding them for doing it wrong.
How should we give our dog a prize?
When our dog or puppy behave well or obey correctly any of our instructions We can give our dog a prize, but be careful not to pounce on it as they are sometimes a little impatient.
We must take the cookie with our fingers and calmly bring it closer to our dog’s mouth. If our dog tries to pounce on the cookie, we had better tell him to sit down and then give it to him.
He should pick it up gently, if he picks it up abruptly we will remove it and say “no!”, Then we approach it calmly again, so that he picks it up gently. We must congratulate him with verbal compliments such as “very well” or “well done” and also pat him.
This is the best way to give our dog a prize.
How many prizes can I give my dog a day?
This can only be decided by your own common sense. If for example you use pieces of fruit, you should be aware that an excess can make you ill, since your digestive system is not used to it.
If for example you use natural dog biscuits, you can use as many as you think appropriate as long as your dog does not start to gain weight, you must evaluate for yourself based on the weight and energy expenditure of your dog. On a personal level I spend between five and eight cookies a day with my dogs and many others if I agree with more puppies that I like to invite hehe
I insist: 100% natural cookies, completely forget about those industrially made cookies / snaks that sell in large stores and even in some veterinary clinics, you can read their composition and see what I mean.
With the sausage pieces we can play a couple of days in a row at most and leave a few weeks in between. As they are products with preservatives and you know what else…. it is better not to abuse them. When I use them, I simply spend one sausage per day per dog (medium-sized dogs).