Beef Heart for Dogs: What It Is and How to Feed It

There is little to argue about with beef heart for dogs: it is beef muscle, and a dog can have it cooked plain or freeze-dried, which is how we sell it. What a dog should not have is heart that went through a human recipe: no butter, no salt, no garlic or onion, no breading.

A muscle that gets filed with the organs

Ask someone to name an organ meat and they say liver. Heart sits on the same shelf at the butcher counter, but the heart is a muscle. It spends its whole life contracting, so the meat is dense and tight-grained, closer to a lean steak than to anything else on the organ tray. It is also mild. Liver tastes like liver, and heart tastes like beef.

A whole beef heart weighs several pounds, with a cap of white fat on top and some tough vessels where the large pipes came in. Butchers sell it whole or in pieces, and there are no bones to deal with.

Raw, cooked or freeze-dried

Raw heart is the butcher counter version. People who feed a raw diet trim the fat cap and the stringy bits at the top, cut the rest into cubes and follow their own handling rules for raw meat. They usually count heart toward the muscle meat share of the bowl rather than the organ share. For everyone else, we would cook it plain.

Cooked heart means simmered or baked with nothing added: no salt, no stock cube, no onion in the pan. Cooked heart turns firm and slices cleanly, so it works as a topper or as a pocket treat for the day. It still needs the fridge.

Freeze-dried heart is the version that travels. Freeze-drying pulls the water out at low temperature and leaves the piece dry and shelf stable, with nothing added. It rides in a jacket pocket with no cooler and no grease on your fingers, and it is the form we make. In every form, plain is the rule.

How much by dog size

A common rule of thumb keeps treats of any kind to around 10 percent of the day's calories, and heart is not a meal. Inside that 10 percent, the useful habit is to break pieces smaller than feels right, since small pieces stretch the same budget over more rewards.

Rough starting points for freeze-dried heart, which runs about 75.3 kcal per ounce on our label:

• Small dogs, under 20 pounds: a few fingernail-sized pieces across a day. A 1.5 ounce bag lasts a long time.
• Medium dogs, 20 to 50 pounds: a small handful of broken pieces across a training session, less on a quiet day.
• Large dogs, over 50 pounds: whole pieces are fine, and a long session might use a quarter of a 3 ounce bag.

For raw or cooked heart, use the same 10 percent and remember that fresh heart is mostly water, so an ounce raw is far less food than an ounce dried. If you are measuring, weigh it.

The first time

Any new protein deserves a slow start. Give one or two small pieces, then wait a day. If nothing changes, scale up across a week. Puppies get the same approach with smaller pieces. Dogs on a prescription diet, or with a known list of foods they cannot have, are the cases to ask your veterinarian first. A prescription diet stops being one the moment you start adding to it.

Heart next to liver and tripe

Liver is the strong one, and most people portion it in slivers because it is rich. Freeze-dried liver also crumbles, and the bottom of the bag turns to powder. Heart is firm and snaps instead of crumbling, and it is the milder of the two, so it gets fed in bigger pieces and more often. The long version is in our beef liver guide.

Green tripe is the stomach lining, and it smells like it. People find it hard to love, especially in a closed car in July. Heart sits in the middle and does not announce itself. Read the green tripe guide for the smelly details. We hold liver and tripe back for the moments that matter and pay with heart for the rest.

Freeze-dried beef heart for dogs

If you want it freeze-dried, our freeze-dried beef heart has one ingredient, beef heart, and we freeze-dry it in small batches in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Nothing else goes in the bag. The pieces are medium sized and firm, 3 of 5 for crunch on our scorecard, and they snap into small bits for rapid rewards. Training value is 5 of 5, the top of our scale. It is milder than liver.

It comes in 1.5 ounce, 3 ounce and 6 ounce bags, all holding the same heart. We list it for dogs of all sizes and for adults and puppies. The label says to feed it as a treat or meal topper, not as a complete diet. Treats ship from us. More of what we make is in the freeze-dried treats collection.

Storage

Freeze-dried heart does not need the fridge. Reseal the bag after opening and keep it cool and dry, out of the sun. Raw heart is raw meat: a day or two in the fridge, then the freezer. Cooked heart keeps a few days cold. More on all of it in how to store freeze-dried treats.

We built a separate site on this one treat: freezedriedbeefheart.com goes deeper on beef heart than this page does, and it sells the same bag.

Questions

Is beef heart organ meat?

Structurally it is muscle. It gets grouped with organ meats at the butcher because of where it sits in the animal, and raw feeders usually count it toward the muscle meat portion of a meal. That split is why it eats and portions like steak.

Can dogs eat beef heart every day?

As a treat inside the 10 percent rule, a dog can have some every day. The exact amount depends on your dog's size and the rest of the day's food. Some people rotate it with liver or tripe across the week.

Can puppies have beef heart?

Yes, once they are on solid food. We list our freeze-dried heart for puppies as well as adults. Start with smaller pieces than you would hand an adult and build up over a week.

Can cats have beef heart?

Small pieces of plain heart are a common cat treat, and freeze-dried pieces break down to a crumb. We list ours for dogs. Keep it plain and keep it small, same as for dogs.

How does beef heart compare with turkey heart?

Turkey hearts are small, so one heart is one reward, and they tend to be the milder of the two. Beef heart comes from a far larger organ, so it arrives as pieces you break down to whatever size the job needs. If you are rotating proteins or steering around poultry, beef heart covers ground turkey heart cannot.

What should I look for in beef heart dog treats?

One ingredient on the label, and the words are beef heart. A piece that snaps rather than bends. If there is a second line in the ingredient list, you are buying something else.