Choosing toys – and especially chews – for dogs who love to chew is no easy task! It’s crucial to ensure that your chewer is safe while enjoying their favorite activity.
Choosing Chews
Every dog parent has heard the risks about plastic eyes and squeakers if you give your dog stuffed toys. Both are choking hazards. Plastic eyes should be avoided, and squeakers should be supervised closely. Did you know it’s challenging to choose chews for your pooch, too?
Rawhide tops the list of chews to avoid for strong chewers. The problem is that large chunks of rawhide pose choking hazards and may cause intestinal blockage. Ingredients and digestibility are also concerns about rawhide. You can read more details about that here, but we would rather tell you about some of our favorites!
Coffee Sticks
We celebrate Lapochka’s Gotcha Day at the end of November. This year, he had a party with his best friend, we went for a walk in the park, and he got a coffee stick. That coffee stick is doggie gold!
Coffee sticks are sustainably sourced chews, harvested from retired coffee plants. They are harder than typical wood, and they’re also comprised of fibers that don’t splinter and are digestible when softened by dog saliva. Their benefits for dogs include decreased stress and improved dental health.
When Lapochka received his, he chewed on it until he fell asleep. More than half a year later it remains one of his favorite possessions. He often finds it on his own when he’s experiencing stress, and he welcomes it when we hand it to him.
We decided on this specific coffee stick (sponsored link), and they have a few different varieties.
Yak Chews
Another chew that is new to us and is equally pure gold is yak cheese chews! This floof is wild about cheese, so handing him a stick of cheese that doubled as a chew filled him with absolute delight.
Yak cheese chews are durable and long lasting. They are full of protein and free from preservatives, chemicals, and additives. In addition, yak chews are nutritious and highly digestible. Like coffee sticks, yak chews provide an outlet for stress and improve dental hygiene.
One risk yak chews pose has an equally awesome solution. Small pieces may remain once a dog has enjoyed chewing on yak cheese, and those small pieces can pose a choking hazard. However, it’s easy to turn small pieces of yak cheese into doggie cheese puffs! We put this piece in the microwave for 30 seconds, let it cool for 2 minutes, and loved watching Lapochka have a blast crunching it like a Cheeto!
This is our favorite place to buy yak chews (sponsored link).
