JR Pet Natutripe Tripe Bone

JR Pet Natutripe Tripe Bone is pure dried tripe formed into a bone shape, in two sizes.

Key Features

• Tripe, which is the one dogs rarely refuse: Green tripe has a reputation among dog owners for a reason: almost nothing turns it down, including dogs that have gone off their food entirely. That makes it the chew to try when nothing else is working.
• Formed into a bone, so it lasts: Loose dried tripe is eaten in seconds. Pressed into a bone shape it has to be worked at, which turns the same ingredient into a proper chew.
• Easy on the gut: Tripe is the stomach lining of a ruminant and is among the gentlest things you can give a dog with a delicate digestion.
• Two sizes: Medium and large, so it can be matched to the dog rather than hoping.

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

• Tripe smells. Everyone who has fed it knows this, and it is the single reason some owners will not. Outside or on a wipeable mat.
• Choose the size by the dog, not by value. A large bone given to a small dog is wasted, and a medium one given to a big dog is a swallowing risk.
• Beef tripe is beef, so it is not the chew for an exclusion diet.
• Keep chews away from children, and wash your hands after handling them and after the dog has been chewing.