Picky Eater Dog Treats: A Five Bag Tasting Order

Picky eater dog treats usually get solved by accident, somewhere around the fourth bag. This kit takes the accident out of it by giving you an order to work through rather than a pile to guess from. Cheddar first because it is the one most dogs take without thinking about it, sardine heads last because nothing here smells stronger and you want something genuinely held in reserve.

Five bags, one at a time, over about a week. The method for a dog that is difficult rather than merely fussy is in our guide to treat training a picky dog, and the other samplers sit on the bundle guides hub.

Sequence beats variety

A mixed bag of six flavors tells you almost nothing. You put a handful down, the dog eats two of them, and you cannot tell if those two won on merit or on proximity. Worse, a dog that has been refusing food for two weeks will often eat anything novel on day one, which is how people decide they have found the answer and then watch it stop working by Thursday.

Running one protein at a time for a day or two gives you a clean result each time. It is slower. It is also the only version that produces information you can act on when the bag runs out and you have to reorder something.

Cheddar first, sardine heads last

Cheddar bites open the flight. One ingredient, cheddar cheese, in an 8 ounce bag, with a guaranteed analysis listing crude protein at a minimum of 34 percent and crude fat at 50. Cheese is the broadest bet in the box and the one most dogs take on the first offer. Crumble a piece rather than handing over a whole one, because a whole bite from an 8 ounce bag is a lot of food for a tasting note.

Beef liver is second and comes in 1.5, 3 and 6 ounce sizes, with crude protein listed at a minimum of 53 percent. Take the smallest for a tasting flight. Liver is the classic fallback for a reason, dense and strong and crumbly, and if the cheese got a shrug this is the one that usually moves a dog. It is also the messiest of the five in a pocket.

Shrimp is third, a 1.5 ounce bag of whole raw shrimp with crude protein listed at a minimum of 71 percent, the leanest and highest protein item here. This is the step for a dog that has turned out to prefer sea to land. The pieces stay curled and whole, and shape alone gets interest from an animal that has been ignoring uniform brown rectangles.

Beef heart is fourth, in the same 1.5, 3 and 6 ounce sizes as the liver, and the panel lists crude protein at a minimum of 68 percent against liver's 53. That is the reason it is in the flight rather than a second organ meat. Heart eats closer to plain muscle than liver does, so a dog that sniffed the liver and walked away sometimes takes this one instead.

Sardine heads are last on purpose. A 2 ounce bag, whole heads, crude protein listed at a minimum of 52 percent and crude fat at 13. They are whole heads, they are unmistakably fish, and in this kitchen they are the bag you can identify from the next room. They either work immediately or not at all. Hold them back. A dog that gets sardine heads in week one has nothing left to be impressed by in week three.

The optional pouch is the Colie from Pink Papyrus Co., a waste bag holder and treat pouch in one body with room for keys and cards, in one size. Pink Papyrus Co. items are sold and shipped by Pink Papyrus Co. through Shopify Collective, not made or shipped by Sniff and Shift. It travels on its own tracking. The five bags come out of our kitchen in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Add it if whichever treat wins is going to live on the lead rather than in a cabinet.

What is not in the flight

Nothing soft, and no flavored biscuits. A picky dog is very often a dog that has been offered a lot of strongly flavored manufactured treats and has learned that none of them taste like anything in particular. Every item here is one ingredient, freeze-dried, and the smell is the actual food rather than a coating.

No tripe either, which is the omission a lot of people would argue with, because tripe is frequently the thing that cracks a hard case. It is left out because its smell dominates a kitchen and it belongs to its own decision, not a flight. It is one item along in the freeze-dried range if you want to add it.

Running it over a week

Day one and two, cheddar only. Offer three or four crumbs at separate points in the day, away from meals, and write down what happened. Eaten instantly, eaten after sniffing, or left.

Day three, move to liver whether or not the cheese landed, because you want the comparison and not just a yes. Day five, shrimp. Day six, heart. Sardine heads only at the end, and only if the first four have all been refused or received with the same mild indifference.

One new thing at a time, and keep an eye on the stool for the first few days as you would with any new food. If a dog is refusing all food and not just treats for more than a day, stop the flight and call your vet, because that is a different problem and no sampler is going to fix it. There is more on eating patterns in older dogs in our piece on treats for senior dogs on special diets.

What this replaces

The cabinet. Specifically the shelf of five or six mostly full bags that got bought one at a time over six months, each one abandoned after a week, none of them ever compared against another under the same conditions. You end this week owning the same number of bags but knowing which one to reorder in a 6 ounce size.

Reordering the winner larger happens in the freeze-dried dog treats, and the ones that lost still have a job in the training treats shelf as second-tier pay.

To sift the whole range yourself by protein and bag size, start at our explore page.

Three neighbors in the sampler cluster approach the same pile from other angles. The American made sampler sorts by where the bags were dried rather than by whether a dog will eat them.

The protein sampler starter kit is the shorter first pass, and the subscription trial kit is what you read once the winner is obvious and you are tired of reordering it by hand.

Questions about the rotation

Size, timing and what to do with the losers all come up.

What size should I order for liver and heart?

The smallest of each for the flight itself. Both come in 1.5, 3 and 6 ounce sizes, and you only need enough to run a fair test. Reorder the winner large once you know which it is.

Can I run it faster than a week?

You can, and the result gets noisier. A dog offered a new protein every few hours starts responding to novelty rather than to the food, which is the exact error the sequence is built to avoid. If you must compress it, give each protein a full day.

What do I do with the four that lost?

Use them as the second and third tier for training rather than throwing them out. A treat a dog takes without enthusiasm is still perfectly good pay for an easy repetition, and keeping the winner scarce is what preserves its value.

Open the cheddar tonight and leave the other four sealed until it has told you something.