Lean ostrich treats for dogs from Carnello, in the Alpenglück range. 60 g, resealable — and genuinely the most interesting treat on the shelf, for one specific reason.
Ostrich is a novel protein, and that is the whole point. Food-responsive skin and digestive problems in dogs are common, and the way they are diagnosed is an elimination diet: the dog eats one protein and one carbohydrate it has never encountered before, for eight to twelve weeks, and nothing else at all. The mechanism is straightforward — an allergic response requires prior sensitisation, so a protein the immune system has never met cannot yet have triggered one. The difficulty is finding proteins a modern dog has genuinely never eaten, because chicken, beef, lamb, pork, salmon and turkey are in virtually every food on the market. Ostrich is one of the few that most dogs have never met. That makes it disproportionately useful.
What is in them. 98% ostrich meat, 1.5% apple fibre, 0.5% minerals. No grain, no gluten, no soy, no artificial colourings, flavourings or preservatives. Compare that with the typical supermarket treat, which is often under 10% meat with the balance made up of cereals, sugars and glycerol.
It is also very lean. Ostrich is a red meat despite coming from a bird, and it is markedly lower in fat than most — useful for overweight dogs and for those on a low-fat diet after pancreatitis, though any dog with a diagnosed condition should be fed on veterinary advice.
One important caveat. If your dog is on a formal elimination diet, do not add these or anything else without asking the vet first. Treats are how those trials fail — not through dishonesty, but because a dog collects snacks from several people in a week and one biscuit is enough to make eight weeks of careful work uninterpretable.
And the rule everyone ignores: treats are food. Keep them under roughly 10% of daily calories and reduce the main meal to match.
Available at Só Verde, an organic concept store in Foz, Porto.
CARNELLO
CARNELLO
CARNELLO
