Neal:: Hey everybody, it's Neal from Growlies. Last week, we talked about puppies and safe chews for puppies. Today, we're going to talk about power chewers and gulpers. Couple of things. Start with, I missed a couple of things with puppies. Some of the things that are really good for the puppies that I didn't mention are things like the little riblets and small fish like the herring and the sardines. Those kinds of things are safe for puppies.

Now, let's talk about power chewers. Almost the same. With power chewers, I often will do, the turkey necks and the chicken carcasses and things like that, frozen, because it gives them a heavier chew with a safe bone. So, they can go at it and do what they need to do. Yes, I realize that for some dogs, it's a 35-second treat, and some dogs, it's a longer treat. It really depends on the dog and the size of the dog, it's demeanor and how hungry it is, all that good stuff. I think that ultimately, what we're looking for is the safest chews for our dogs, whether they be a power chewer, a puppy or a gulper.

I'm pretty lucky, I have one gulper and one dog who's actually really good with bones. Knock on wood. If we use the turkey necks and carcasses and so on and so forth, and you have a dog that's over 12 or 15 pounds, using them frozen slows them down, gives them a good chew. The joy-- It cools them off in the summer, fantastic treat, right? Really what I'm usually looking for is to stick to the toothbrushes and stick to the edible bones. When we talk about moving over to chews that are like the meditative bones, these are the bones that are the big leg bones of ungulates, the knuckles, all those kinds of things.

If I'm going to give that kind of thing to a power chewer or a gulper, I'm going to go for as big a bone as I can manage. You've got a 50-pound dog, that knuckle is a great option if you want to give them a long chew. The idea is to go bigger, not smaller, because the power chewers and the gulpers, the gulpers especially, you don't want them gulping down a big, thick bone.

Using these knuckles are safe because if we look at how the bone is formed, this is at the end of the big bone. This is a large bone. If you look at this, this bone, and if you look at the whole bone, it'll be like three feet long. They would eat the end of this bone. Let me get a whole bone to show you what I'm going to talk about here. Here we go. That bone comes from this end of a larger version of this.

Dogs, when they see a bone that size in the wild, let's say, it wouldn't really, but let's say it did happen, you know, caribou, right? They would eat this end, and they would eat this end. Sorry Emma. They'd eat this end, they'd eat this end, but they'd never get into the centre here. The centre here, that's those soup bones. That's those bones that are most dangerous bones. This is a weight-bearing bone. They would eat this end, which is the knuckle. It's all collagens and soft tissue. It's the knee joint and then the ankle joint. Again, collagens and rich, soft cartilage and all those things. They would eat this end, they would eat this end, but they'd never get to these thick soup bones.

Here, this is a perfect example. They'd never get to that part of it. They'd never get into that part of it because that bone, that's a centimetre and a half, two centimetres thick. They couldn't crack those. They would have to let them rot out to get the fat or the food that's in the middle of that bone. They wouldn't be able to eat that bone. When we slice it, rock and roll, we make that marrow available to them, and they love it, and it's tasty, and it's a yummy calorie-dense treat. But you know what? It's not necessarily a safe treat. Those bones, if you've got a power chewer, if you've got a gulper, and if you have a puppy, don't use them. Just don't.

The soup bones, stay away from them. Knuckles, for power chewers and gulpers, not puppies. No ungulate bones for puppies. Ungulates, multi-stomach animal. Beef, bison, lamb. Lamb can be appropriate depending on the size of the animal, but again, I'm not a big, huge fan. I would rather just wait for the leg bones until they're mature and safe. I don't use the big fat leg bones, the big, hard, heavy, like with a piece of cheesecake of all the fat in the middle. Don't use those unless you know that your dog is safe with those, but if you don't, don't risk it. Just use knuckles, use non-weight-bearing turkey necks or chicken necks or carcasses. Use tails, use sardines, use fish heads. Use pig ears, use lamb necks, use pork necks or chicken feet. These are good, healthy, awesome, safe bones. No, they don't last as long as the soup bones, but that's okay, the knuckles last longer than the soup bones. If you really, really need to use them, they're there for you. We do carry the soup bones. We carry them because we have such great demand, but if somebody asked my opinion, I'll happily tell them not to use them. You know one of my dog's favorite treats? A little piece of frozen tripe. Check this out. This product here, it's cubed, pure green tripe. It's just the sheets of tripe cut into cubes. I reach into the freezer, I grab a couple out, I give it to the dogs. It's a little chew, it's a treat. It's not big enough to be a chew really. It's a treat. These tripe stuffed esophagus are fantastic chews, use them frozen.

They'd stink less when they're frozen. By the way, outdoor item. One of the things I like to do in my house to keep it clean, because if you do use those ungulate bones, those leg bones of cows and bison, they are fatty. What I do with my girls is I put a towel on their bed, and I give them their treat. If they leave their bed, I take it away, and I put it back on the bed. Then because it's a high-value item, they very quickly learn that if they leave the towel, that they lose the treat. Guess what? Now I could give them their bone anywhere in the house [snaps finger], boom, straight to the towel because they know that's the safe place that I won't take it away.

That way, I can pick up the towel, throw it in the laundry, and I don't end up with any fat on my carpet, I don't end up with a smear on my floor. I also use the deck, we're privileged enough to have a deck. We left the dogs out on the deck where they could chew on a lovely summer day. Those kinds of things are the way I want to approach chews, whether it be for a puppy, a power chewer or a gulper. The leg bones are the riskiest bones. They're the ones that cause those slab fractures on teeth, but so do the knuckles. That's why I prefer the edible bones and the toothbrushes over the meditative bones because they just don't have the density to cause the risked teeth.

Anybody that had to do a dental with their dog will tell you how expensive a good dental with the dog can be. Kitty cats as well. Kitty cats, it's hard to teach them how to get into chewing, but these whole quail that we have-- You know what? I'm just going to do one next week on kitty cats and chewing, that's it. It's too big, I'm already eight minutes, so we're going to talk about that next week.

Thank you everybody. Just to let you know, whoa, the Growlies Howlies cookies are available. These are our frozen ones, they're called Chews. That way they're soft enough that you can break them up for little dogs because the other ones that are called the Crunch are generally a little large for small dogs and too crunchy for them.

These Growlies offer a little bit of a chew, they're only cooked once as opposed to twice like a biscotti. For the crunch, these ones are cooked once. They have a bit of a chew, they're easier to break, more appropriate for small animals, and a fantastic deal. Only I think six ingredients, will talk about chickpeas, flax, Lamb Liver, applesauce, blueberries and baking powder. That'd be five ingredients. We're really happy to have them, it's our first Growlies brand product. We had some pepperonis years and years and years ago, but we never really did what we've done with these, and we're very proud that they're available to you now. So, come on down, check it out.

I hope you've learned a little bit about how to make sure that your dog is safely chewing, because they want to. Cheers.