Bandit's Grain Free Biscuits

[Debbie and Toby]

Has anyone tried these biscuits yet? I was thinking about getting the peanut butter flavor, they look like they would be Ok... but they look like a fairly new product..

https://banditsbest.com/products/bandits-peanut-butter-biscuits-10-oz

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

There's no list of ingredients or nutritional information, so I can't make a recommendation for or against. 

[Debbie and Toby]

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

They are fine as far as safety of ingredients goes, but they are more than 70% carbohydrate. I prefer a higher protein content, even in treats. (So did JD. I don't think he would have eaten these, lol.)

But there's no harm in giving them if your dog likes them. 

[Debbie and Toby]

Karen, How do I determine the carbohydrate in a treat? What carbohydrate % should I be looking for? I always try to read the labels, I look for Made in the US, grain free, no soy, wheat or corn, etc.  Toby seems to do best when we stick to our guidelines and gets a very basic grain free or very limited ingredient treat. I know there are a lot of products on the recommended list, but not all of them work for Toby, he is also very picky. I always struggle trying to find treats for him that he won't get bored with before the bag is empty. We recently bought some of the Cloud Star Buddy Biscuits, he does not like them.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

There are only three macronutrients: protein, carbohydrate and fat. All of the calories(energy)/nutrition in any food is made up of some percentage of those three. 

With dog foods and treats, the label gives you the protein and fat percentages, as well as the fiber and moisture (water) content. So you have to do a little math to figure out what the carbohydrate content is. But it's very simple.

In these treats, the label tells us we have 9% protein and 10% fat. So 19% of this product is made up of those two macronutrients. 
Water contains no calories, energy or nutritients, but water makes up 8% of the volume of the product. 

Fiber is technically a carbohydrate, but it doesn't always contribute to calories (energy) because it isn't always digestible. We have 3% fiber here.
So....19 + 8 + 3 = 30. That means that 30% of the total volume of this product consists of those 4 things: protein, fat, fiber and water, and that means that the rest of the volume of this product is carbohydrate. 100 is the whole. Subtract the 30% and you have 70% of the product consisting of carbohydrate, by volume. 
In terms of calories (or energy supplied), since water doesn't count towards that, you have 19 for the protein and fat, and we'll throw in the 3% fiber, since we don't know if it is soluble or insoluble (and therefore whether it does count towards the total calories or not) and that makes 22% of the calorie content of this product supplied by fats, protein and carbs, which means that the remaining 78% of the calories are supplied by carbohydrates. So this treat consists of somewhere between 70-78% carbohydrate, which for a dog is pretty high.
I hope that makes sense. 

[Debbie and Toby]

Yes, thank you

So if I look for treats higher in protein that would lower the carbohydrate

What would be the ideal maximum carbohydrate I should be looking for in treats?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Yes, increasing one macronutrient is always going to decrease at least one of the others. 

I would shoot for an absolute maximum of 50% carbohydrate, and lower is better.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I have found that most picky eaters prefer pure protein treats, i.e. treats that consist only of an animal protein. Pure Bites is an example of this. You do get some fat always with animal proteins, but zero carbs.

And of course, a single ingredient food is always going to be easier on the digestion than anything with multiple ingredients.