A scientific comparison of chewies and their degradation in stomach & intestinal juices

[Minga & Malu & Costa]

For those of you who use Greenies, Nutri dent Nylabone, Waggin' Train Freshies or Bone-A-Mint Wheat free dental chews:

Because I work for a university, I have access to scientific medical and veterinary journals. I was just reading an article in the American Journal of Animal and Veterinary Sciences comparing these four similar chewy treats. I give my Lhasa Apso Greenies, so I was curious to see how they stood up to these other similar type chewies. The issue here is whether the treats can dissolve in the gastric juices of the dog and therefore not result in an intestinal blockage.

Bone-A-Mint came out the best treat in terms of degradation in the in vitro gastric juices (for any non-scientists, this means they concocted formulas that have the same properties as stomach and intestinal juices and placed them in an environment (dog body temperature) to simulate the tummy, then placed same-sized chunks of the chewy in the environment to time the degradation).

At 2 hours, a 1 cm cube of the chewy was degraded 60% and by 4 hours 85% for Bone-A-Mint. The other 3 chewies at similar time points were only 15-20% degraded and 20-30% degraded. After 12 hours the Greenies and Nutri Dent by Nylabone were only about 50% degraded!! Freshies was about 75% degraded at 12 hours.

So, if you want the benefit of a dental chew for your dog but are afraid of a blockage it looks like Bone-A-Mint is the way to go. I had never heard of them before, but I will likely be giving them a try in the very near future. They were available to buy online from a variety of sources.

[Bev and WILLY]

Thanks for the great info. I'll order some.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Waggin' Trains chews (chicken) are what made Taquito almost die during the recalls during 2007. Melamine....
Be careful!!!! Make sure all of these treats are not imported in any way from China.

[Minga & Malu & Costa]

So far all I know is that the company for Bone-A-Mint is based out of Plano TX. Digging now to see if the treats are actually made here in the US!!

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Waggin' Trains say "made in the USA" but they import ingredients from China (which is where the melanime came from during the big scare 3 years ago).
We just have to be careful - you may want to email the Bone-a-Mint company.
I am ultra leery of many companies because of what happened.

[Minga & Malu & Costa]

It appears that they have the food manufacturing plant in Plano, but that China is a distributor. Will contact them to see what I can find out!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Thanks for this discussion, Minga, and for whatever info you can get on the actual source of the ingredients. With some of the products that contain ingredients from China, communication with the company has reassured us that the ingredients are carefully inspected at their facilities here in the U.S. - Dogswell jerky is an example of this. Hopefully, the Bone-A-Mint manufacturers can give us this same reassurance. Please let us know what you find out, and thanks again!

[F, Calla & Luca]

How did they put melamine in the chews. Were they like jerky?

[Cheri & Bonny]

Thanks so much for this info! I thought the Greenies were far more digestible than this... I'm glad I only gave her a few of them.

[Minga & Malu & Costa]

Me too! my poor little Lhasa Apso!!! Of course I have a huge container of them......I may cut them into smaller pieces instead of giving her the whole one.

[Minga & Malu & Costa]

Also, if anyone is interested, this particular journal article is available free online, since it was published in 2006. But in my experience, people who aren't scientists don't usually like to read scientific publications :)

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Thanks for all of the info! I am with you on digestiblity - its hard on our little dogs (I have a chihuahua).

[Lori]

Thanks for the info. Lately when I go into a store, I come out with nothing for Casper because I just don't know what is safe & healthy anymore!