A Sampler Of Training Treats For Dogs, Milk-Bone Trail Mix Is Good!

The Good: Apparently delicious, Great for reinforcement
The Bad: Lacks the dental benefits I want when giving Myah treats, Pricier than other Milk-Bone treats.
The Basics: Milk-Bone Trail Mix is a good reinforcement treat for dogs, though there are others I prefer (and can better afford!) to give Myah.


Since my wife went off to Michigan to work for the summer, I have been alone with our Siberian Husky, Myah, who never really seemed to like me before now. Now, she comes to work with me every day and I take her to the park – beautiful park, Green Lakes State Park (reviewed here!) – that she loves each day as well. I suppose I am growing on the girl, which is nice because I know my wife would kill me if anything happened to Myah. Literally kill me. Fortunately, I have been working with Myah and even getting her to do a few new tricks. That’s not entirely true; I bring Myah to work where one of my co-workers continues to get Myah to do new tricks.

Fortunately, before my wife left for the summer, she picked up several different types of dog treats. One was a bad of treats specifically designed for me to use with Myah while training and for reinforcement of good behaviors. That treat was a bag of Milk-Bone Trail Mix! Before these, the onkly Milk-Bone treat Myah had was the Milk-Bone MaroSnacks (reviewed here!), which she absolutely loved.

Milk-Bone Trail Mix comes in a 9 oz. box filled with dog treats. The Milk-Bone Trail Mix come with four different pieces in the mix. There are rolled oat bones – brown and white. Both rolled oat bones are 1” long by 1/2" wide and 5/16” tall. They are pressed rolled oats, made into the shape of tiny bones, just like what one might expect from Milk-Bone! The Trail Mix also includes sweet potato discs. These discs are orange, supple like good dried fruit and are a little over a half inch in diameter. The Real Beef chunks are 3/4" by 3/4” by 3/16” blocks of real meat. This smelled just like beef jerky and made for an interesting combination of pieces. All four pieces were in our Milk-Bone Trail Mix with about equal frequency, which is nice.

Myah, predictably, went right for the beef pieces first, even picking through the other pieces to consume the beef part of the trail mix before the other three types of treats in the assortment. After that, though, she exhibited no preference. She ate the sweet potato and rolled oat bones with a ferocity that made it clear she liked what she was eating, but she showed no desire to discriminate between the various pieces in the Trail Mix after the beef was gone.

Because half the contents of the Trail Mix are supple, this treat does not have as much in the way of dental benefits as I usually hope a dog treat will. That makes it good for reinforcement, but not a strong treat that I readily endorse. If it’s not scraping plaque and tartar and/or freshening Myah’s breath, it’s not doing all a dog treat could, in my book!

Lacking in extensive dental benefits, Milk-Bone Trail Mix is, at least, fairly healthy for dogs of all sizes. With a guaranteed analysis that declares the Milk-Bone Trail Mix have at least 11% crude protein and 6% crude fat and at most 3% fiber and 16% moisture, these are not at all bad snacks. Made primarily of wheat flour, whole ground wheat, and brewer’s rice, Milk-Bone has made a generally snack for dogs.

Milk-Bone Trail Mix are small enough to be great for a training reinforcement snack, but I’m not wild about the packaging and price. Because they only come in resealable 9 oz. bags, it is very easy to go through bags of these while training for a few weeks. Myah and I went through an entire bag one week and I suspect getting her to roll over is going to cost me another whole bag! The environmental impact of that – in addition to the cost – is not something I am wild about.

That said, Milk-Bone Trail Mix are apparently tasty and enough of an inducement to get Myah to follow basic commands. That makes them worthwhile to me!

For other dog treat reviews, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Dental Smartbones Large
Hartz Crunch ‘N Clean Savory Dog Biscuits
Purina Benefuls Baked Delights Stars

5/10

For other pet product reviews, be sure to visit my Pet Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the dog product reviews!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Inexpensive, Effective And (According To Myah) Delicious, Milk-Bone MaroSnacks Deliver!

The Good: Inexpensive, Apparently delicious, Good for reinforcement, Decent for canine dental health
The Bad: A little messier than I usually like for a dog treat.
The Basics: Milk-Bone MaroSnacks are a pretty amazing dog treat for dogs that are well worth picking up for both basic treat and training your dog!


For the past several days, I have been in Michigan with my wife. We brought with us several things for me to review while she spent time with her friends. Ironically, our dog Myah ate one whole bag of treats long before we got to Michigan (my fault for leaving a bag in the car where she could get to it, oddly not entirely my fault as the bag of treats was inside a zippered bookbag). This left us with a box of Milk-Bone MaroSnacks for Myah while we were in Michigan. The Milk-Bone MaroSnacks have quickly proven to be useful to both Myah and Hefner, the bull mastiff owned by the friend we are statying with while in Michigan.

I should be surprised by how fast we have been going through the box of Milk-Bone MaroSnacks, but the truth is, the way both dogs love them, it is hard to be surprised. Instead, Milk-Bone MaroSnacks have made it possible for me to get anything at all done while the two dogs are both inside (both are unaltered and they have been moving toward breeding, making me feel like a chaperone at a Catholic school high school dance!). And the truth of the matter is, outside how flakey these treats are, I can find nothing at all wrong with the Milk-Bone MaroSnacks.

Milk-Bone MaroSnacks come in, apparently, several sizes and for our fifty pound Siberian Husky Myah, we bought the Large ones. The box of Milk-Bone Large MaroSnacks is a 26.4 oz box filled with dog treats. The Milk-Bone MaroSnacks are 1 1/2” long by 1/2" wide and about as deep. The Milk-Bone MaroSnacks are pillow-shaped and basically resemble pigs in a blanket. The light tan exterior of each treat wraps around a solid red marrow center. For the Large version of the Milk-Bone MaroSnacks, the box of Milk-Bone MaroSnacks has a Siberian Husky on it, but frankly Myah is prettier.

The solid exterior of the Milk-Bone MaroSnacks makes them worthwhile for helping to brush the dog’s teeth by providing physical removal of plaque and tartar. Within the last week of Myah having these treats, Myah’s breath has improved and Hefner, whose mouth was much, much worse, has been improving quite a bit since he started getting these treats.

More than the dental benefits, Milk-Bone MaroSnacks are generally healthy for large dogs. In each treat, there are 32 calories and a gram of fat. Myah, who is still trying to put on weight following her last pregnancy, has not significantly bulked up since she started getting the Milk-Bone MaroSnacks. With a guaranteed analysis that declares the Milk-Bone MaroSnacks have at least 12% crude protein, 7% crude fat, 1% Calcium, and at most 2% fiber and 12% moisture, these are not at all bad snacks. Made primarily of wheat flour, meat and bone meal and sugar, Milk-Bone has made an exceptionally healthy and worthwhile snack for dogs.

Milk-Bone MaroSnacks are small enough to be great for a training reinforcement snack and inexpensive enough to make it not feel wasteful. The exterior of each MaroSnack flakes apart and is somewhat messy as a result. Myah cleans up all of her crumbs, but Hefner leaves almost half the snack on the floor. This treat is fine for hardwood, linoleum or tile floors, but not ideal to give to dogs on rugs. They have too hard a time cleaning them up.

That said, Milk-Bone MaroSnacks are apparently so delicious that both dogs really go ape for these treats and they are inexpensive enough that I don’t mind giving both dogs these treats each time they come into the house! This is a wonderful dog treat worth picking up!

For other dog treat reviews, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Purina Benefuls Baked Delights Stars
EverPet Rawhide Knotted Bone
Redbarn Roofle

9/10

For other pet product reviews, be sure to visit my Pet Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the dog product reviews!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |