JR Pet Ostrich Treats

JR Pet Ostrich Treats are air-dried ostrich treats in three different textures.

Key Features

• Three textures, three jobs: Biltong is chewy and tears into training pieces. Crisps are light and crunchy, which suits a small dog or a quick reward. Spaghetti is thin strands, which is the one to scatter for a dog to hunt out. Same protein, quite different uses.
• Ostrich is the novel protein that works: Almost no dog has ever eaten ostrich, which is the whole point of it. For a dog reacting to chicken, beef or lamb, a protein it has genuinely never met is what an exclusion diet needs, and ostrich is as far off the usual list as you can get.
• Very lean meat: Ostrich is among the leanest red meats there is: high in protein and low in fat even by the standards of this range. That makes it a sensible chew for a dog watching its weight.
• Low odour and not greasy: The usual objection to natural chews is the smell and the marks they leave on furniture. The ostrich range is notably better on both counts, which makes it the indoor choice.

How Much Is Too Much

• Treats want to sit at around a tenth of a dog's daily calories. Everything above that either comes out of the main meal or goes on as weight.
• Air-dried meat is dense, because the water has been taken out of it. A 100 g bag is closer to three or four hundred grams of fresh meat in what it actually delivers, so it goes much further than the weight suggests.
• For training, break them small. A dog works just as hard for a fingernail sized piece as for a whole stick, and you get ten times the repetitions out of the bag.
• On a day with a big chew in it, cut the dinner. That is far easier than trying to take the weight off afterwards.

Single Proteins And Exclusion Diets

• These are single named proteins with nothing else in them, and that is what makes the range useful for more than treating.
• If you are running an exclusion diet to find a food sensitivity, a single protein treat is the only kind you can give without undoing the whole exercise. A treat labelled 'meat and animal derivatives' tells you nothing about what the dog ate.
• The novel proteins are the ones a dog has probably never been exposed to: ostrich, kangaroo, goat, rabbit, venison, sea bass. A dog reacting to chicken and beef has usually never met any of those, which is why a vet will point you at them.
• Introduce one new protein at a time and leave a couple of weeks between them, or you will not know which one caused what.

Storing Them

• Air-dried rather than cooked, so they keep by being dry. Keep them dry and they last; let them get damp and they will go mouldy.
• Reseal the bag or tip them into an airtight tub, and keep them off a sunny shelf and away from the hob.
• That matters more in this climate than it does where they are made. A bag left open in a humid kitchen softens within days.
• Natural products vary. Piece size, colour and thickness differ from bag to bag, because these were parts of animals rather than something extruded to a spec.

Good To Know

• Biltong 60 g, crisps 60 g and spaghetti 80 g on this listing, so check which you are adding to the basket.
• If you are starting an exclusion diet, the crisps or the biltong are the easiest forms to control the portion of.
• Ostrich costs more than beef or chicken, and that is the protein rather than the processing. It is what you pay for a meat almost no dog has eaten.
• Keep chews away from children, and wash your hands after handling them and after the dog has been chewing.