Entirely Average Dog Treat: Benny Likes The Zuke's Z-Bone With Apples!

The Good: Decent ingredients, Dental benefits, Benny likes them
The Bad: Smells terrible, Environmental impact of the packaging, Expensive
The Basics: Benny' actually liked the Zuke’s Z-Bone With Apples, so I suppose the scent is more offensive to humans than dogs!


My poor Benny! Benny, the English Setter my wife and I adopted back at the beginning of July probably has a food allergy (gosh, I hope that's what it is because my wife has tried everything to alleviate poor Benny's constant desire to itch). Benny's skin is redder than most and his hair was initially patchy, because of how much he scratched at his body, but after various medicines, baths twice a week and now a special diet food he seems to be getting better. Odds are, the special diet food the veterinarian prescribed for Benny is what is actually showing the positive results we have started to see.

But, even with the change for Benny's diet, he craves the occasional treat and finding one that fits into his new dietary needs has been a little difficult. Benny found a treat he generally enjoys with the Zuke's Z-Bone With Apples dog treats.

Basics

The Zuke's Z-Bone With Apples are a treat that is in the same snack niche as Greenies. Made to look like a green-brown bone, much like Greenies - save that Greenies are green, the Zuke’s Large Z-Bone With Apples are more brown in its coloring - the Z-Bone With Apples are supposed to be difficult for the dog to chew, which helps them scrape the plaque and tartar off their teeth. When Benny actually consumed the Z-Bone With Apples, they did actually clean his teeth like they were supposed to. The fact that Benny wanted more and more of the Z-Bone With Apples seems to indicate that they work and English Setters, at least, like them!

The Z-Bone With Apples Treats are brownish-green and shaped like a bone, though they are flat on the longest portion. Each large Z-Bone With Apples is 4 1/2” long and 1 11/16” wide at its widest point and 1" thick. Each Large Z-Bone With Apples is a 2.5 oz. treat that comes individually as a wrapped bone-shaped treat.

Ease Of Preparation

The green ground potato and pea "bone" is designed to help fight plaque and tartar build-up by having a texture to it and being very hard. The bone-shaped treat is smooth until the dog bites into it and fractures it. Then it becomes very mealy and the texture helps remove matter from a dog's mouth. Because the bone is too big to simply be swallowed, the Z-Bone With Apples effectively brushes the dog's teeth and tongue using friction whenever the dog bites into it to split it and swallows it, dragging the bolus across their tongue. Benny's experience with the Z-Bone With Apples seemed to prove that it worked for that purpose!

Preparing the treat for consumption is very easy; simply unwrap the individually-wrapped bone treat and give it to your dog. I highly recommend having water nearby for the dog to drink as they eat the Z-Bone!

Benny’s Reaction

The Zuke's Z-Bone With Apples smell like apple cider vinegar. The aroma is much more like apple cider vinegar than apples and that is not very appealing to me. Fortunately, Benny was enticed by the aroma of the Z-Bone With Apples. Woken up from a sound sleep, Benny actually got very excited about the Zuke's Z-Bone With Apples.

The Zuke's Z-Bone With Apples is big enough that it forces even a decent sized dog like Benny to chew up the bone to break it up and consume it. As a result, the physical action cleaned Benny's teeth well. Unfortunately, because of the somewhat vinegar scent to the Z-Bone With Apples, the treat did very little for Benny's breath (which, to be fair, is not terrible to begin with). The fact that Benny enthusiastically consumed the Z-Bone With Apples almost justifies its price!

Nutrition

These treats are pretty decent for dogs, especially those who have allergies to various meats. The package recommends that dog owners have clean drinking water available to their dog when they feed them this treat. This treat is a dietary supplement, not a full meal. Z-Bone With Apples in the large size have at least 9.5% crude protein, 1% crude fat, and no more than 5% crude fiber and 20% moisture, so those looking out for their dog's specific dietary needs, that might help. They are made primarily of ground potatoes, ground peas, and vegetable glycerine. There are a fair amount of preservatives in the Z-Bone With Apples, which explains why the ones we got last week had a June 15, 2019 expiration date.

Overall

The Zuke’s Z-Bone With Apples is expensive, but does what it promises as far as enticing Benny to eat them and cleaning his teeth, even if it does not overly freshen his breath!

For other Zuke's dog treat reviews, please check out my takes on:
Zuke's Crunchy Naturals Baked With Peanut Butter & Bananas Dog Treats
Zuke's Roasted Chicken Recipe Mini Naturals
Clean Berry Crisp Z-Bones

5/10

For other pet product reviews, please visit my Pet Review Index Page for an organized listing of reviews on the subject!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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