All Natural Dog Biscuits
The Reality

All natural dog biscuits, gourmet dog treats, organic dog food - they are everywhere. Great marketing convincing you that your dog treat and food products are great choices. The reality - the all natural claims are UNREGULATED. What does that mean? It means that there is no official definition of what an all natural dog treat can or cannot contain. And if you will read our page on gourmet or all natural dog biscuits labels, you can begin to understand how misleading all of these dog snack claims can be. Not only do most bake at home bakers not tell you everything that is in their treats (by listing their recipe and not their ingredients), the lack of a formal label review process by any government or regulatory agency does not prevent wild and often untrue claims. So your all natural dog biscuits may actually contain the EXACT SAME ingredients as a regular brand of treats.



If you will check out this website (in particular the section titled "Other Label Claims"), from the FDA about dog food labels (remember dog treats have far fewer requirements than dog food), you can see that claims made by treat makers may be unfounded:

http://www.fda.gov - Understanding Pet Food Labels

Now, if you have your own dog treat business or bake your own treats, you may see this as a huge opportunity. You can claim that your treats are all natural and no one will challenge you. Our position on this is simply:

Eventually dog treat requirements will be more tightly regulated, especially as the gourmet dog treat business gains more visibility. It is best to start your business right and be truthful on your labels and with your customers.

To help you better understand what we're talking about here, take for instance the following dog treats:

All Natural Peanut Butter Dog Treat-Gourmet Ingredients: whole-wheat flour, unbleached flour, peanut butter, peanuts, egg, canola oil, carob, yogurt, sesame seed. Feed as a treat or reward. Guaranteed Analysis: Crude Protein (min.):11%, Crude Fat (min.): 15%,Crude Fiber (max.):1.5%,Moisture (max):7.5% 4 oz.

Now, take a look at the above information carefully. There are blue and red colors in the icing for these treats. Do you see anything in the ingredient statement that refers to coloring agents?? Also, often treat bakers will claim their coatings are simply "yogurt". If you tried dipping your own treats in yogurt, and setting it out - we assure you that it would be a terrible mess - (we know because when we started baking our own treats, we tried it!). The coatings that are used to decorate dog treats are not simply "yogurt" or "carob." They are complex mixes designed to last, and be attractive - they have usually 5 or more ingredients in them.

Understand that we are not stating that using these types of ingredients are bad or wrong, or that giving these types of products to your dog is bad - but we do believe that not labeling them, or calling treats like this "all natural" is misleading to consumers. As a dog owner, we believe you should have all of the information about your dog biscuits so that you are making informed choices.

In the people food industry, there are very strict requirements for what can be called natural, or all natural. And since we believe that our dogs are not just pets, but are family, we believe that their food and treats should be labeled with the same requirements that our own food is. If you have more questions or comments about all natural dog biscuits, please CONTACT US!