Healthy Treat Tips | The CHKN Blog

Are Rawhide Dog Treats Safe? What Every Owner Should Know Are rawhide dog treats safe is one of the most searched questions in the dog treat category, and it keeps getting searched because a lot of dog owners have heard concerns, are unsure what to believe, and want a clear answer. I am going to give you one, along with the context that makes it meaningful. The short version is that rawhide carries real risks that are not fully disclosed on most packaging, those risks are not

Dog treat storage tips rarely make it onto anyone's list of urgent research topics, right up until the moment you find a half-open bag of treats that smell wrong and have no idea how long they have been sitting there. Treat storage is one of those things that matters more than it seems to in the moment of opening a bag, and getting it right consistently extends the useful life of what you buy while keeping the treat genuinely appealing to your dog throughout. We make JUST CHK

Can Dogs Eat Human Food as Treats? What's Safe and What's Not Can dogs eat human food as treats is a question that sits at the intersection of practicality and safety, and it deserves a thorough answer because the stakes are real in both directions. Some human foods are not just safe for dogs but genuinely nutritious and excellent as training treats. Others are toxic and should never be given under any circumstances. And a significant middle ground exists where the answer is

Beef treats for dogs occupy a specific motivational territory that chicken and fish treats cannot always reach. Beef has a stronger, more complex smell than poultry and a richer flavor profile that many dogs find more compelling than the options that have become standard in the treat market. For owners who have noticed their dog starting to lose enthusiasm for their usual treat, or who need something with higher motivational pull for difficult training scenarios, beef is freq

Best Dog Treats for Anxiety: What Helps and What Doesn't The best dog treats for anxiety is a search that a lot of dog owners make from a place of genuine desperation. An anxious dog is hard to live with and hard to watch. The pacing, the whining, the destructive behavior during departures, the trembling at the vet, the inability to settle in new environments. Owners want to help, and the treat aisle offers a lot of products that promise to do exactly that. The reality is con

How to bond with your dog using treats is a question that comes with a deceptively simple surface answer: give them something they like, and they will like you more. That is not wrong exactly, but it misses most of what makes treat-based bonding work well and misses almost everything that makes it go wrong. Treats are a tool for communication as much as they are a food reward, and the relationship that builds through consistent, intentional treat interactions is qualitatively

Are Dog Treats Good for Dental Health? What Actually Works Are dog treats good for dental health is one of the most common questions dog owners ask, and one of the most frequently misunderstood. The pet treat industry has done an effective job of positioning certain products as dental solutions, and the reality is considerably more complicated than the marketing suggests. Some treats do contribute meaningfully to oral health. Many do not. And understanding the difference requ

Salmon treats for dogs occupy a specific and useful place in the treat category that chicken and beef treats cannot fill. Salmon is a leaner red-meat alternative with a dramatically different nutritional profile, built around omega-3 fatty acids that are not meaningfully present in poultry or beef at typical treat quantities. For dogs with skin issues, joint problems, dull coats, or owners who want to rotate proteins thoughtfully, salmon belongs in the conversation in a way t

How to Dehydrate Chicken for Dog Treats: The Complete Guide Learning how to dehydrate chicken for dog treats is exactly how JUST CHKN started, years before it was a business. My wife and I were making chicken jerky at home for our dachshunds because we wanted to know exactly what we were feeding them, and the commercial alternatives we found did not meet the standard we were looking for. We bought a dehydrator, bought some chicken breast from our local grocery store, and star

The sweet potato dog treats benefits conversation tends to run in one of two directions: either sweet potato is presented as a superfood that every dog should be eating, or it is dismissed as a carbohydrate filler dressed up in health language. The truth is more specific than either of those positions. Sweet potato is a genuinely nutritious ingredient with real things to offer certain dogs in certain contexts, and a more modest fit than the marketing implies for others. We ar

Best Dog Treats for Sensitive Stomachs: A Complete Guide The best dog treats for sensitive stomachs are genuinely different from what most pet store shelves have to offer, and understanding why requires spending a few minutes on what "sensitive stomach" actually means in dogs and what is usually driving it. We hear from customers with sensitive-stomached dogs more than almost any other group, and the story tends to follow a consistent pattern: the dog has had recurring digest

Why do dogs love treats so much is one of those questions that sounds lighthearted until you start looking at the answer, which turns out to be rooted in some genuinely interesting behavioral science and evolutionary biology. The short answer is that dogs are wired to respond to food rewards, and treats in particular activate a set of brain systems that are functionally similar to the reward circuitry in humans. The longer answer explains why treats are not just food, why som

Best Dog Treats for Picky Eaters: What We Learned the Hard Way Finding the best dog treats for picky eaters is one of the most frustrating problems a dog owner can face, because the solution is not obvious and most of the advice online is too generic to actually help. I know this because we lived it for years. Our dachshund Oatmeal came home as a puppy and immediately made clear that she had a very specific set of opinions about food, and "yes" was not one of them. She refuse

Why We Started a Dog Treat Business From Our Kitchen Why we started a dog treat business from our kitchen is a question with a genuinely simple answer, even if the path that followed was anything but. It started with Oatmeal. Oatmeal is our first dachshund, and she came home as a puppy with strong opinions about food. Specifically, she had very strong opinions about what she would not eat. Commercial treats, chicken-flavored toppers, most of what the pet store had to offer. S

What Is the Healthiest Protein for Dog Treats? The healthiest protein for dog treats is a question that matters more than most owners realize, because protein source is the single biggest nutritional variable in a treat. Fat content, digestibility, allergen profile, and caloric density all change significantly depending on which protein you choose. After years of making single-ingredient treats at home and building JUST CHKN around this exact question, here is how the most co

Healthy, natural dehydrated chicken strip dog treats What Are Single Ingredient Dog Treats Made Of? What are single ingredient dog treats made of is a question that sounds like it answers itself: one ingredient. But the process matters just as much as the ingredient list, and there's more nuance in the "how" than the "what" might suggest. As someone who has been making dehydrated chicken treats at home for years before turning it into JUST CHKN, I can give you the inside view

Shiba Innu glaring intensely at natural dehydrated chicken dog treat Why Your Dog's Treats Matter as Much as Their Food Most dog owners put real thought into their dog's food. They read labels, compare brands, think about protein sources and ingredient quality. Then they grab a bag of treats at checkout without a second look. It's a gap that I think about a lot, because the reason we believe why dog treats matter as much as dog food is grounded in some pretty simple math that

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