Creating Dog Treats Has Come a Long Way
May 30th 2025
There are lots of different ways to create a dog treat. Starting at the most basic, you can treat your dog with something raw, that is one ingredient. For instance, almost all dogs like a carrot or green beans. A raw protein, like chicken necks or beef liver are examples of highly valued treats. Of course the vegetables are safer as they are cleaner and easier to feed. But the more protein in the treat, the more the dogs generally like it.
The most common dog treat is baked. Baked treats are made just like you bake cookies at home. Mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and the flavorings and bake. The treats can be either crunchy or soft. Most of the treats consumed are in this form. 
Newer, but not new to the industry are dehydrated or freeze-dried treats. The end product looks similar to one another, but a different process is used to create them. Freeze dried foods have 98% of its moisture removed, while dehydrated foods have 80% of the moisture removed. Freeze Drying is the better method for preserving a food’s usual flavor and smell, according to Kero Gans, RDN. Freeze-dried food is also better for preserving inherent nutrients and minerals, Gans says. “Basically, you are locking in the nutrients and taste." The dehydrating process loses approximately 50% of the nutrients by the time the treat is done.
We are proud to introduce our new Tiny Treats! They are freeze dried and come in 3 flavors.
They are softer than our baked cookies, just like before. They come in tubes, but the tubes are shorter and wider. There are the same number of treats in the tubes, even though the tubes are shorter. (There are approximately 20 treats/tube). The ingredient lists are super short with whole food ingredients. They are mostly proteins. The flavors are Beef Stew, Duck a la ‘orange, and Chicken sausage. These are what our dog trainer customers call “high value” treats. That means they are the most effective to get the dogs attention and focus. It has taken us a long time to get these right, but they are and your dog can’t wait to try them!