Treats: How Much Is Too Much?

Treats are how most pets become overweight, and almost never because one person gave too many. They become overweight because four people each gave a perfectly reasonable amount and nobody was counting.

Which means the fix is rarely about being stricter with the dog. It is about the household agreeing on a number.

The rule

No more than ten percent of daily calories from treats. The other ninety percent should come from complete food, because that is where the balanced nutrition is.

Exceed it and two things happen: excess calories, and dilution of a carefully formulated diet by things with no nutritional balance.

What counts

Everything that is not the measured meal:

• Commercial treats and biscuits
• Dental chews, which are often high in calories
• Training rewards, which add up fast during a training week
• Table scraps, including "just a small piece"
• Bones and offcuts
• Food used to hide medication
• What the children give
• What the neighbour gives

That last category is the one that defeats most households.

The household problem, and the fix

Measure the day's treat allowance into a container in the morning. Everyone feeds from that container. When it is empty, it is empty.

It sounds excessive and it is the only method that reliably works, because it makes a shared budget visible instead of leaving four people each estimating their own share.

Training without overfeeding

Training needs frequent rewards, which is exactly when treat intake gets out of hand.

• Use part of the daily food ration as training rewards rather than adding treats on top. Most dogs work perfectly well for their own kibble
• Make pieces tiny. A dog values the event more than the volume; a treat the size of a pea works as well as one four times bigger
• Reduce the meal on heavy training days
• Use praise and play as rewards too, which cost nothing

Reasonable low-calorie options

• Carrot pieces, raw or cooked
• Green beans
• Cucumber
• Small pieces of plain cooked chicken, counted against the ration
• Plain cooked pumpkin
• A few pieces of the animal's own kibble, which many dogs accept happily as a reward

Introduce anything new in small amounts, since sudden changes cause digestive upset.

What not to give

• Cooked bones, which splinter
• Anything from a seasoned pot, because of onion and garlic
• Chocolate, grapes, raisins, xylitol, macadamia nuts
• Milk, which causes diarrhoea in most adult cats and many dogs
• Very hard chews, antlers and hooves, which fracture teeth. If you cannot dent it with a thumbnail, it can break a tooth
• Fatty offcuts and skin, which can trigger pancreatitis

Cats specifically

Cats are small, so treats represent a much larger share of daily intake than owners assume. A few pieces that look trivial can be a meaningful fraction of a cat's day.

Cats also respond well to non-food rewards, particularly play, which is worth using rather than reaching for food every time.

The dilution problem

A dog getting a quarter of its calories from treats is eating a quarter less complete food, so it is under-supplied on the nutrients the complete food was balanced to deliver. That matters most in growing puppies and in animals on a therapeutic diet, where treats can undo the whole point of the prescription.

If an animal is on a prescription diet, ask which treats are compatible. Often the answer is the diet's own kibble.

The honest audit

For one week, write down everything the animal is given by anybody. Most people are surprised, and the exercise usually explains a weight problem without any further investigation.

Weight is the slowest-moving health problem there is, and treats are the least visible cause: no single moment looks like the mistake, and by the time it shows the arithmetic has been running for a year.

Consultations are covered on Skeepy Pet HMO plans, so getting the actual number for your animal, from a vet who has weighed it, is easier than continuing to estimate.