Clear Conscience Pet® Safe Treating Guidelines:

Clear Conscience Pet® offers many healthy, tasty, and rewarding treating options for your pet. Since the health and safety of your pets is our highest priority, we have created a set of guidelines to help you better understand not only our treats, but other options on the market that you may be using. If you follow these guidelines as applied our specific treat options, you will be in an even better position to “Treat with Clear Conscience™” using a Clear Conscience Pet® product or to more safely use any treat.

General guidelines: 

1. Supervision: With the exception of tender treats like Sliders®, all other treats require some level of supervision and should only be fed when you are present and watching your pet. You can then monitor their chewing and remove a harder treat from the pet if necessary in the unlikely event that it becomes lodged in their mouth or throat. Using the CCP Crunch-O-Meter™ (see below), you can learn quickly what level of chewing experience a particular treat provides. Using a Crunch Level rating from 1 through 4, Level 1 treats require the least supervision and Level 4 the most.  
2. Cleanliness: Natural meaty treats from sources such as tendons and cartilage, bully sticks, pig ears, or real bones, even though fully cooked, should be treated as you would fresh meats.  Wash hands before and after handling this type of treat and clean surfaces on which you have placed them.
3. A word on children and treating:  One of the most special and rewarding human-animal relationships is the bond between children and your family’s animal companions. It is therefore important to educate kids, from the youngest age possible, about safety when giving food or treats to pets. Some simple rules:
   
   1. Very young kids should not give treats, pet food, or people food to pets at all, even under adult supervision. Use your own judgment, but a good rule of thumb is 5 and older to allow them to “practice” giving treats while you closely monitor the situation.  This will set the proper stage to help your pet to understand that their very small human “siblings” are not their source of food, which should discourage food theft as well.  That said, if your little one is dangling a hot dog OR a dog treat from their hand, you should expect that a dog will snatch it if given the opportunity.
   2. When you feel the time is right, closely supervise your child when you allow them to occasionally enjoy giving a treat, and only if your dog or other pet has a “soft” mouth and knows how to take things lightly from the hand. 
4. Know your dog’s chewing style and personality: Only give harder treats to dogs that are willing to let you remove food from their mouths or their immediate surroundings without aggression. If you can't train your dog to accept gentle removal of harder treats such as cartilage, tendons, or bones from their mouth or the area around them, they are not good candidates for these harder treats, especially bones which are non-digestible and meant to be chewed and not actually consumed except for in very small pieces. For this reason, cartilage and tendons are a much better and safer option than real bones for most dogs. They provide almost the same chewing satisfaction and dental benefits as bones, but they are digestible and therefore safer.
5. Treat appropriately and remember that “treats are food too,” and as such contribute calories to the diet. We want you and your pets to LOVE our treats, but not to overuse them and take away from the balance of their diet. Clear Conscience® treats are very healthy and contribute quality nutrients to the diet, so the calories are not “empty” like many high-carbohydrate treats made with grains and fillers.  Therefore, if your pet enjoys some CCP treats and eats a little less dinner, their overall diet will not be adversely affected.