Healthy Treat Tips | The CHKN Blog

Dog begging for natural dehydrated chicken treat Why Does My Dog Beg for Treats? What's Actually Going On Alfredo has a look. It is a very specific, very deliberate look, directed at the treat bag or at whoever is standing nearest to where the treat bag lives. It communicates one thing with absolute clarity. My wife and I refer to it as the Stare, and it is effective. Treat begging is one of the most relatable dog behaviors out there, and also one of the most misunderstood. H

A healthy dog makes every dog parent happy What Makes a Dog Treat Actually Healthy / Good for Their Health? "Healthy" appears on what feels like every bag of dog treats at the pet store. It's on bags with twenty-ingredient lists. It's on bags with corn syrup. It's on bags with artificial colors and chemical preservatives. The word has been so thoroughly overused that it's become nearly meaningless as a signal of actual quality. After years of making our own treats at home and

Beagle sniffing natural dehydrated chicken dog treats Do Dogs Actually Prefer Natural Treats Over Processed? When Oatmeal was a puppy and refusing almost everything we put in front of her, we tried a lot of treats. Cute shaped biscuits. Soft commercial chews. Treats with names that implied they were made of real ingredients. She turned her nose up at most of them. Then we tried dehydrated chicken breast, and she acted like we had been holding out on her the whole time. I've t

JUST CHKN treats laid out for a dog walk How Many Dog Treats Per Day Is Too Many? A Real Answer When we were in the thick of training Alfredo as a puppy, my wife and I had to have an honest conversation about treats. He was motivated. We were generous. And at some point it became clear we needed to actually think about how many treats per day was appropriate rather than just handing them out every time he did something cute, which in a dachshund puppy is basically every five

Dog waiting for limited ingredient dog treat What Is a Limited Ingredient Dog Treat and Why It Matters When my wife and I first started paying close attention to what was actually in our dogs' treats, the thing that struck us most wasn't any single bad ingredient. It was the sheer number of ingredients total. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five items on a label for a product that was supposed to be a simple snack for a dog. It raised an obvious question: why does a dog treat need th

Oatmeal and Alfredo sniffing JUST CHKN bags Can I Use Just Chicken (JUST CHKN) for Dog Treats? Yes, Here's How The entire premise of JUST CHKN is that one ingredient is enough. Not just enough, better. But I understand the skepticism, because we live in a world where food products are expected to have long ingredient lists. The idea that a bag of treats contains literally one thing can feel like something's missing. Nothing's missing. Here's exactly how my wife and I make our

The best treats make the happiest dogs Why Are Store-Bought Dog Treats So Expensive? The Truth Before JUST CHKN existed, my wife and I used to buy premium dog treats for our dachshunds at the pet store. We were spending at least $20 for 3-5 oz of treats, for a tiny bag that was gone in a week. And every time I looked at the ingredient list, I had the same thought: I'm paying this much for this? Why are these store-bought dog treats so expensive? That frustration is a big part

Homemade dehydrated chicken jerky How Long Do Homemade Dog Treats Last? The Real Answer This is a question I wish someone had given me a straight answer on when I first started making treats at home. Most of what I found online when I asked "how long do homemade dog treats last" was either overly optimistic ("last weeks at room temperature!") or vague enough to be useless. After years of making homemade dehydrated chicken jerky, first at home for our own dachshunds, and now a

Oatmeal and Alfredo sniffing JUST CHKN bag High-Value Dog Treats for Training: What Works Best I'll admit upfront that I'm not a professional dog trainer. What I am is a dog owner who's spent years figuring out what actually motivates dogs to work, first with Oatmeal, our notoriously picky dachshund, and then with Alfredo, who came into our home already skeptical of everything that wasn't real meat. What we learned through a lot of trial and error, and eventually built a whol

Homemade dog treats and toys Should I Buy Expensive Dog Treats or Make My Own? I've been on both sides of this question. My wife and I made homemade chicken jerky treats for our dachshunds for years before we ever sold a single bag. We had the dehydrator running on weekends, we learned the right temperature (165°F internal to be safe with poultry), we dialed in the thickness and the dehydration time to get that perfect crunch. We were the people who made their own treats. So

Alfredo training for a treat Dog Training Treats for Picky Eaters: What Actually Works When we brought Oatmeal home as a puppy, we quickly found out she had opinions. Strong ones. About food. She was underweight, not eating well, and turning her nose up at practically everything we put in front of her, commercial kibble, wet food toppers, the cute little training treats we'd bought at the pet store with high hopes. Nothing stuck. My wife and I went through more bags and cans

Jar of baked dog treats How to Store Dog Treats to Keep Them Fresh Longer When I first started making chicken jerky at home for my dogs, I learned about treat storage the hard way. A batch I was proud of went soft and then developed surface mold in about a week because I left it in a loosely covered bowl on the counter. Lesson learned. Now that JUST CHKN is a real business, proper storage is something I think about every day, because we make our treats fresh to order without

Dog waiting for a treat Best Dog Treats for Sensitive Stomachs: What Actually Works If you have a dog with a sensitive stomach, you know the drill. You find a treat they seem to love, you give them a few, and then a few hours later... you're cleaning up the evidence. It's frustrating, and it's one of the most common things I hear from JUST CHKN customers when they tell me why they went looking for something different. The good news is that sensitive stomachs in dogs are usual

Tray of dehydrated chicken treats from JUST CHKN What Ingredients Should I Avoid in Dog Treats? The first thing I do when I pick up a bag of dog treats, any bag, even from a brand I think I trust, is flip it over and read the ingredient list. It's a habit I developed years ago when I started making my own treats at home, and it's one I'd encourage every dog owner to adopt. The reason I started making JUST CHKN in the first place is that I kept finding things on those labels t

Dogs at local market Are Homemade Dog Treats Safer Than Store-Bought? Before JUST CHKN was a business, it was just something our family did at home. We made chicken jerky for our own dogs because we wanted to know exactly what was in their treats. No mystery ingredients, no preservatives we had to look up. Just chicken. So when people ask me are homemade dog treats safer than store-bought ones, I feel like I have a pretty honest perspective on both sides. I've been the home t

Dogs waiting patiently for treats Will Training Treats Make My Dog Fat? It's one of the most common things I hear from dog owners, especially people who are in the thick of training a new puppy or working on recall with an older dog: will training treats make my dog fat? You want to use treats, because honestly, treats work, but you also don't want to turn every training session into an accidental calorie bomb. I've thought about this a lot, both as a dog owner and as someone

Two golden retrievers getting pet Are Single Ingredient Dog Treats Actually Good for Dogs? I'll be honest with you, the first time I made chicken jerky for my dog at home, it wasn't some grand experiment. It was frustration. I'd flipped over enough treat bags at the pet store to know that I couldn't pronounce half the ingredients, and I couldn't figure out why a dog treat needed artificial preservatives, added sugars, or flavor enhancers. My dog just wanted something that tas

Are Dog Treats Good for Dogs? The Honest Answer Are dog treats good for dogs is a question that sounds simple and turns out to be genuinely nuanced. The short answer is that it depends almost entirely on what is in them. A treat made from one clean ingredient with no additives is a fundamentally different product than a treat with fifteen ingredients including synthetic preservatives and artificial colors, even if they sit on the same shelf and carry similar marketing languag

What Is Small Batch Dog Treat Production and Why Care? Small batch dog treat production is a phrase that gets used a lot in the premium pet food market, sometimes by brands that are not as small or as handmade as they want you to believe. So let me tell you what it actually means for JUST CHKN, because in our case the answer is very literal. My wife and I make every batch ourselves, in our home, with a dehydrator that sits on a kitchen counter. No co-packer, no contract manuf

Why Do Dogs Love Treats So Much? The Real Explanation Why do dogs love treats so much is one of those questions that seems obvious until you actually think about it. The obvious answer is that treats taste good. But that is not the whole story, and the fuller explanation has real implications for how you choose treats, how you use them, and why some treats produce a completely different reaction than others. Watching Oatmeal and Alfredo react to a bag of JUST CHKN being picke