American Made Dog Treats-Does It Matter?

It is not uncommon that I receive an email advertising USDA approved dog treats and chews from overseas. Vendors, primarily in India and China, are very aggressive in promoting their products to potential retail customers. As a person with a background in sales, I recommend that the senders of these electronic solicitations follow one of the basic tenets of goods salesmanship. In order to establish a relationship and ultimately a sale, you must first do your homework. It is quite easy for a vendor of dog chews or biscuits to find out exactly what we sell.

Just take a moment to view the brands down the left side of our website and you'll quickly get the idea that we are not a company that specializes in the sale of products manufactured in places with questionable safety records. Instead, we focus on the dog treat brands and products that are either made in the USA or a country with a comparable emphasis on wholesomeness and food safety. This does not mean that you cannot find a product originating in one of the countries mentioned above on this site. It does mean, however, that the overwhelming majority of what we sell is baked or otherwise manufactured in conditions that we expect for food products in the United States. Some of the dog biscuits are literally made by hand of human grade ingredients in bakeries that also sell products made for human consumption.

There are certain exceptions such as Free Range Moo! products. These beef based dog chews come from Argentina. Why not use American beef? Unfortunately, our cattle are not typically hormone free nor are they allowed to freely graze as is typical in Argentina or Brazil. So in a situation such as this, the best bet for the safety and health of our pets is to choose the imported product. For whatever reason, most likely related to pure economics, it is very difficult to find chicken dog treats that are made domestically. Although these brands are the exception, we offer Primal and Zukes brand chicken products which are American made. Are these products more expensive than imported products? Yes they certainly are. Is it worth paying a little extra for these brands over lesser products? When pondering that question I think of a dog owner that I recently met who was adamant about only buying American made dog treats. I'm not sure that she was a great patriot but she certainly had been directly affected by the result of lax overseas safety and quality control standards. One of her dogs had died as a result of melamine tainted dog food.