Treat Tuesday: Real Meat Jerky Treats and Dog Food

These Real Meat Jerky Treats are the original product made by the folks at the Real Meat Company. These are slightly greasy, fairly stinky treats that are great for training. I do have to break them up into much smaller pieces, but they are wonderful for dogs with allergies and food sensitivities.

When I first saw Real Meat Dog Food on the shelf at a local store, my first thought was "So they've put the jerky treats in a bigger bag, then?" The dog food itself seemed a bit drier than I remembered the treats being, but I didn't have the chance to do a side-by-side comparison until now.

While they're both supposed to just be dried meat, the treats and dog food are actually pretty easy to tell apart.

The Real Meat Lamb Jerky Treats are softer and greasier than the Real Meat Lamb Dog Food. The are easy to bend and tear into smaller bits for training treats, and are stinkier than the dog food. Real Meat Air-Dried Dog Food is harder and stiffer, so it's more difficult to break into tiny training treats. It's a more pleasant product to handle because it is less greasy and stinky, but that also makes it a lower value treat.

The ingredients for the lamb treats are significantly less complex than those for the dog food. Treats don't have to meet nutritional requirements. The five ingredients in Real Meat Lamb Jerky Treats are: lamb, dried chicory root, vegetable glycerin, sea salt, and mixed tocopherols. These make for a shelf-stable product.

By contrast, the dog food includes organ meats, ground bone, pumpkin, parsley, rosemary, and all the vitamins a dog needs. It has both a higher protein content and a higher fat content than the jerky treats.

So is it worth buying the treats when you can buy a whole bag of dog food instead? Probably for some people. My dogs will happily work for the Real Meat Jerky Treats, but are pretty 'meh' about working for the actual food.