JR Pet Beef Flatties - 15cm

JR Pet Beef Flatties - 15cm are 15 cm flat air-dried beef chews, with natural glucosamine and chondroitin.

Key Features

• Glucosamine and chondroitin, naturally: JR point to both in these, and they come from the connective tissue rather than from a supplement added afterwards. Worth knowing for an older dog or a big breed, though a chew is a small contribution next to a proper joint supplement.
• Flat, so most dogs can manage one: A flat 15 cm strip suits a wider range of dogs than a bone does. A small dog can get purchase on the edge, and a large dog has something to hold down with a paw.
• A medium chew: Longer than a treat and softer than a bone, which is the gap most dogs actually need filling.
• Air-dried beef and nothing else: Grain and gluten free, no additives, no preservatives. JR list it from twelve weeks old.

Chewing Safely

• Supervise every chew. A natural chew is not a toy you can leave a dog alone with, and the risk with all of them is the same one: a piece small enough to swallow whole.
• Take the end away once it gets down to a size the dog could gulp. That single habit prevents almost every chew related emergency there is.
• Match the chew to the dog. One a large dog finishes in two minutes has become a choking hazard, and one a small dog cannot mark at all just frustrates it.
• Fresh water alongside. Air-dried chews are dry by definition, and a dog that has worked at one will want a drink afterwards.
• Introduce a new chew gradually, a short session to begin with. A dog that has never had a hard chew will overdo it and end up with a sore mouth or a loose stool.
• Very hard chews can chip or fracture a tooth, particularly in an older dog or a determined chewer. If your dog attacks a chew rather than working at it, pick something softer.

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.

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

• The 15 cm length is the useful thing: long enough for a dog to hold while it works at the far end, which is how a chew lasts.
• If joints are the reason you are buying, a chew will not do what a dosed supplement does. Treat the glucosamine here as a bonus rather than a treatment.
• Beef is a common protein behind food reactions, so not one for an exclusion diet.
• Keep chews away from children, and wash your hands after handling them and after the dog has been chewing.