JR Pet Beef Tendons - 250g

JR Pet Beef Tendons - 250g are air-dried beef tendons, a tough chew that is kinder to teeth than bone.

Key Features

• Tough without being hard: Tendon is pure connective tissue, so it gives under pressure instead of shattering. A dog gets a long chew out of it without the tooth risk that comes with a weight-bearing bone.
• Natural collagen: Tendon is largely collagen, which is the protein that makes up a dog's own tendons, skin and joint surfaces. That is the sensible version of the claim: it is a good protein source, not a joint supplement.
• The chewing does the dental work: A tough fibrous chew drags across the tooth surface as the dog works at it. It is not a substitute for brushing, but it does slow plaque.
• One ingredient: Beef tendon, air-dried. No grain, no gluten, nothing added. JR list it from twelve weeks.

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 chew to choose for a determined chewer that you do not want on bones. Tendon gives way; bone does not, and that is where cracked teeth come from.
• Piece sizes vary. Supervise and take the end away when it gets small.
• Beef is a common protein behind food reactions. On an exclusion diet, use the ostrich or goat chews instead.
• Keep chews away from children, and wash your hands after handling them and after the dog has been chewing.