Why do we care so much?
Other viral trends, such as the raw food diet, have hidden consequences as well. Think about basic food handling safety: raw chicken gets it's own cutting board and knife. Mixing raw chicken with food you don't plan on cooking is the on-ramp to the Salmonella highway.
I am not here to debate whether or not raw is good for the animal. Instead, simply illustrating that your dog may have salmonella in their mouth.
For example, let's say you feed your dog raw chicken. Now, 30 minutes later you begin to play fetch in the house with some toy. You throw, dog retrieves, repeat.
Guess what just happened?
You have indirectly lathered your hands with your dogs saliva, and any residual salmonella. Where did the toy land before your dog retrieved it? Now that area may be contaminated too.
If you are conscious of that and quickly sanitize things, you have my respect. Consider though how many people you have seen leave a public restroom without washing their hands. I'll bet those folks aren't as quick to get the bleach out. (If you're reading this and you don't wash your hands... please wash them.)
My point is, it's easy for not-so-good things to become mainstream, at least temporarily. Proper education on this stuff isn't a mandatory part of our society as no one has to take a test to prove they know how to care for an animal.
Okay, but why bother writing any of that up?
How is all that relevant to this particular conversation?
To put it simply, purchasing our products allows you to avoid any of those headaches. If something were bad for your pet, you would never see it on our website.
It is no mystery that dogs need to consume a balanced diet. However, here is where the water begins to get muddy. Go ahead, scour the internet, search for the best diet plan for your pet. You will find that literally zero people are in agreement over what is ideal.
As a pet owner, you are responsible for everything your pet consumes. Sometimes your dog might eat the birthday cake you left on the counter, mistakes happen. But generally, you actively pick what goes in their mouth.
Guess what though? When deciding what treat to purchase, the decision is easy.
There are two things to consider.
1. How many ingredients are there? If this treat is calling itself jerky, any number higher than one is an immediate disqualification. The ingredient list translates to how manufactured and processed the product is.
Consider for a moment that every single pet food (that doesn't totally suck) uses meat as its primary source of protein. This means chicken, beef, other poultry, fish, pork etc. are the foundation of the nutrition. Why would you put anything into a treat that isn't one of those? Just because we humans like to drink sugar loaded soda pop and eat candy doesn't mean a dog treat should contain sugar, salt, glycerin, smoke flavoring, plus whatever else you'd find on a label. *Points finger at most of the flavored dog treats*
2. Read the guaranteed analysis. In particular, check out the moisture rating on each product you examine. It is easy to understand what jerky is supposed to be: dried meat. Right? What if I told you the higher that moisture percentage goes, the more preservatives are required?
Compare the 10% moisture rating in all of our zero preservative jerky to that of any other brand. Then keep in mind that these dog treats are sold by weight. What is your theory as to why other companies go the preservative route?
Let's see if you were right:
It allows them to use cheaper ingredients that they can then hide by heavily processing the product. They then keep it wet (load it with preservatives so it somehow last's like 10 years), and sell it by weight. This means big, fat, juicy, profit margins. As a consequence, pet owners get a massive bag of junk for cheap... Think of it like fast food for dogs.
One of the top selling brands on the largest internet pet store has a staggering 25% moisture content. For reference, we sell in a four ounce portion. If we went up to 25% moisture, we could make two and a half bags worth of jerky from the same quantity of pieces that you receive in one.
Lets address one of the more prevalent myths spread on the internet:
Jerky treats will give my dog kidney failure!
This is a myth and there is zero research to back the claim. This came to light in a time when most of the dog treats, jerky or not, came from China (~2013). If you didn't know, different countries allow different things to happen inside of factories. Chemicals, general work place cleanliness and ingredient sources (among other things) can result in the goods from a certain country being tainted. The result being the imported products assumed to be most likely responsible were all pulled from the shelves. Learn more with this article from FDA.gov
The fact of the matter is that pure chicken breast, beef sirloin or pork loin will never get your dog sick.
Thanks for reading, enjoy taking 15% off anything in our store with this coupon code: SMARTER
Just enter the code during checkout, don't forget!
Did ya make it to the bottom? Let us know your thoughts on this discussion!
This company was started because, as pet owners, we were suspicious of many of the dog treats available. Our belief has always been that jerky is the crème de la crème of dog treats... Who doesn't love beef jerky, right? Problem is, take a glance at the treat isle in a pet shop and you're running for the hills. Those funky, gooey, soft and squishy, "jerky" treats were the last thing we'd give to our dogs.
We do our best to keep things lighthearted over here at Stone Jerky. That being said, there are some topics that require a more heavy hand.
A brief background on why this is important:
Here on the internet, misinformation has a tendency to spread far and wide. On one day, crazy Karen from accounting is trying to sell you on a new opportunity (The latest multi-level marketing scheme she has fallen for) and on the next she is repeating some Facebook article to the workplace about why dogs should be vegan. The unfortunate reality is that everybody knows a, "Karen from accounting." What happens when this group becomes large enough? (If your name is Karen, this is nothing personal.)
Companies begin to make new products to sell to them! Once that occurs, this new trend is here to stay.
People like to hype things up and jump aboard the latest trend, particularly fad diets. That's fine, people have the freedom to choose how they spend their money. The problem arises when pet store shelves are loaded with products catering to a trend that is less than healthy. Enter antlers as chew toys.
(If you didn't know, Deer/Elk/Moose antlers are guaranteed to break your dogs teeth. Get ready to spend $700-$800 at the Vet for extractions. Native Americans used antlers to produce arrowheads and other blades out of stone... why would someone knowingly allow their dog to chew on them!? Because they don't know, that's why)