You want to give your dog something good, but not all treats are worth handing over. Some of the most popular ones carry ingredients that may do more harm than good.
The label is where to focus. Artificial preservatives like BHA turn up in a lot of treats, and fillers like corn, wheat, and added sugar are surprisingly common.
This article names ten treats worth avoiding, from rawhide chews to a few big-brand picks. We also cover how to read a label and spot safer options.
Read on to find out which ones to skip.
Here are the top 10 worst dog treat that you should never feed your dog:
- Rawhide chews
- Basted Biscuits Dog Treats (by Ol’ Roy)
- Milk-bones
- Beneful Baked Delicious dog treats (by Purina)
- Beggin’ Strips Dog Treats (by Purina)
- Beef Flavor dog Treats (by Canine Carry Outs)
- Dynamic Pet Real Ham Bone
- IAMS Proactive Health Adult Chunks
- Gravy Train
- Cesar Filets
1. Rawhide chews
Rawhide is one of the most dangerous dog chews on the market. Dog owners have shared plenty of horror stories on social media about what these chews have done to their dogs.
Some owners report that their dogs needed emergency surgery after eating a small amount of rawhide, and a few have lost their dogs entirely after the dog choked.
The frustrating part is that rawhide chews are still sold in countless pet stores. You’ll find them at Walmart and dollar stores without a second thought.
Rawhide comes in different shapes and sizes, and it has become one of the most common treats people reach for when thinking of feeding their dog.
Many new dog owners assume it’s dehydrated meat and that dogs can safely chew it for hours. Some dogs do chew it for a long time without obvious problems, but sooner or later the risks tend to catch up.
Rawhide bones pose a real choking and blockage risk. That danger is actually more serious than chemical concerns for most dogs.
If a dog swallows a large piece, it can lodge in the throat or get stuck somewhere in the digestive tract.
Rawhide doesn’t soften in the stomach the way food does. It swells up instead.
The manufacturing process typically involves a chemical treatment that uses materials including glue, lead, arsenic, mercury, maltodextrin, chromium flavorings, formaldehyde, and other toxins.
Some brands market their rawhide as “made in the USA,” which may be true, but it doesn’t make the chew any safer for your dog.
2. Basted Biscuits Dog Treats (by Ol’ Roy)
Basted Biscuits by Ol’ Roy were found to contain pentobarbital, the drug used to euthanize cats and dogs. According to the FDA, beef and bone meal and animal fat carry a higher risk of containing this euthanasia drug.
That means these biscuits may contain material from euthanized animals.
Grain flour is the number one ingredient in Beef Basted Biscuits by Ol’ Roy. Beef and bone meal, the second ingredient, is a protein derived from animal rendering.
Think of it as a concentrated slurry of animal parts cooked down until the liquid evaporates. What’s left gets processed into a dry, high-protein powder.
Unfortunately, many lower-end brands don’t specify which animal the meal came from. That’s worth thinking about.
It could be any species. Higher-end treats typically name the specific animal in their meat and bone meal.
Salt, artificial colors, and added flavoring also appear in this brand. The ingredient list includes wheat flour, wheat bran, beef and bone meal, and animal fat preserved with mixed tocopherols.
It also contains calcium carbonate, rice sugar, grain vitamins, maltodextrin, beef stock, animal plasma, carboxymethylcellulose, condensed chicken liver particles, and potassium sorbate to preserve freshness.
Additional ingredients include salt, natural flavors, brewers yeast, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, manganese sulfate, cobalt carbonate, calcium iodate, sodium selenite, and vitamins A, D3, and E, among others.
Most of these ingredients are hard to justify in a treat, and dog owners are better off skipping this brand entirely.
3. Milk-bones
Milk-Bone is one of the most widely recognized dog treats out there. Despite that, it’s been called out as one of the five most dangerous pet treats in a video by Rodney Habib.
One of its ingredients, butylated hydroxyanisole, is a chemical preservative that has been identified as a cancer-causing agent responsible for producing tumors in laboratory animals. Milk-Bone also contains high amounts of sugar and other ingredients that have no place in a dog treat, including corn, wheat, and soy.
Dogs can struggle to digest these ingredients, and the result is often digestive upset or diarrhea. A dog’s digestive system isn’t built to handle the same things a human’s can.
It’s one of the top-selling dog treats on the market.
The number one ingredient is wheat flour, followed by meat and bone meal. BHA is also present in Milk-Bone.
Dogs that are overweight should especially avoid this treat.
The full ingredient list includes wheat flour, meat and bone meal, wheat bran, milk, beef fat preserved with BHA, salt, natural flavor, dicalcium phosphate, corn germ, calcium carbonate, brewer’s dried yeast, malted cereal flour, and sodium metabisulfite. It also contains choline chloride, minerals including ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, manganous oxide, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, and sodium selenite, plus vitamin E supplements.
Additional vitamins listed include vitamin A, niacin, D-calcium pantothenate, riboflavin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, vitamin D3, folic acid, biotin, and vitamin B12.
Dogs are better off without this one.
4. Beneful Baked Delicious dog treats (by Purina)
A class-action lawsuit was filed against Nestle Purina Petcare Company, alleging that some of its treat foods include ingredients capable of harming dogs. The lawsuit claims that more than 3,000 people reported that their dogs became seriously ill, and some died, after eating Beneful baked treats by Purina.
There are no meat sources in the top five ingredients of Purina Baked Delight’s Beef Dog Treats. Brewer’s rice is the number one ingredient.
Brewer’s rice is a low-grade rice made from the small milled fragments of rice kernels. Breaking down the larger grain this way strips out many of the nutrients found in whole white or brown rice.
Ground yellow corn is the second ingredient, and it’s not much better. It offers little nutritional value for dogs.
Several dog breeds also have a genuinely hard time digesting corn.
The ingredient list also includes condensed cheese powder, oat fiber, sugar, salt, phosphoric acid, preserved animal fat, sorbic acid, calcium propionate, and artificial dyes including FD&C Red 40, Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, Yellow 6, and citric acid, along with rosemary extract.
Beneful does include chicken as a protein source, but the formula is also loaded with corn, soy, and corn derivatives. Those ingredients can cause digestive and health problems over time.
It also contains irregular amounts of chicken and poultry by-products, and the formula uses multiple artificial dyes.
This treat isn’t worth the money or the risk.
5. Beggin’ Strips Dog Treats (by Purina)
Beggin’ Strips have been heavily sold across the USA for a long time. They’re marketed as being “so real” that dogs will be craving more.
Any health-conscious dog owner who actually reads the ingredient list will want to look elsewhere. On the bacon and meat flavor, the number one ingredient is ground wheat flour, not bacon.
Bacon doesn’t show up until number 9 on the list. Sugar comes in at number 7.
That means there’s more sugar than bacon in a treat called Beggin’ Strips.
BHA also appears in this product. Artificial flavors and colors fill out the rest of the ingredient list.
The full ingredient list includes wheat, grain gluten feed, wheat flour, water, glycerin, ground yellow corn, sugar, soybean bran, bacon processed with sodium nitrite, salt, bacon grease preserved with BHA and citric acid, phosphoric acid, sorbic acid, calcium propionate, natural and artificial smoke flavors, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 1.
There are a few problems here. Bacon isn’t great for dogs in the first place.
But setting that aside, the treat doesn’t deliver what the packaging implies.
That big bacon image on the front? It’s the ninth ingredient.
Before it, you get ingredients that could contribute to weight gain and blood sugar issues.
Then there’s salt and bacon fat preserved with BHA, a known cancer-causing agent.
Skip anything bacon-flavored for your dog. The artificial dyes on top of everything else make this treat even harder to recommend.
6. Beef Flavor dog Treats (by Canine Carry Outs)
Chicken is the first ingredient in Canine Carry Outs, which is a reasonable start. Chicken is a solid source of protein for dogs.
Seeing chicken at the top of the list is usually a good sign when you’re evaluating a treat.
Unfortunately, Canine Carry Outs don’t keep things healthy past the first ingredient. Corn sorghum is number two, and corn sorghum and added sugar aren’t things dogs need.
Sugar promotes obesity, tooth decay, and diabetes in dogs.
BHA, also known as Butylated Hydroxyanisole, is also present in Canine Carry Outs products. BHA is a known cancer-causing agent.
It’s listed by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment as a chemical known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.
The ingredient list includes chicken, corn sugar, soy flour, wheat flour, corn starch, water, propylene glycol, animal fat preserved with BHA, animal digest, calcium sulfate, soy protein concentrate, sugar, meat, potassium chloride, salt, phosphoric acid, titanium dioxide, sorbic acid, Red 40, garlic, natural smoke flavor, iron oxide, BHA, citric acid, and propylene glycol.
Propylene glycol in dog treats isn’t automatically a death sentence, but brands that include it tend to be lower-quality store brands.
These treats also carry a number of other problematic ingredients, including artificial dyes and chemical preservatives.
Propylene glycol has reportedly been banned for use in dog food. Don’t feed Canine Carry Outs or any other brand that includes propylene glycol to your dog.
7. Dynamic Pet Real Ham Bone
Most dogs love a big bone, and that’s understandable. But this particular treat has drawn serious criticism from dog owners for years.
Many owners report that it causes a range of problems and can even be fatal.
Thousands of owners have shared negative experiences with this bone, and the FDA has warned pet owners to use caution. The bone reportedly splinters when chewed, creating sharp fragments that can lodge in a dog’s small intestines and cause vomiting, diarrhea, and death.
After enough complaints, the manufacturer added a safety warning sticker advising owners to supervise their dog while chewing. A warning sticker doesn’t make the treat safe, though.
There’s a lawsuit, an online petition, and a Facebook page calling on the FDA to pull this treat from store shelves.
8. IAMS Proactive Health Adult Chunks
The first ingredient is chicken. Raw chicken contains about 80% water, and once it’s cooked, most of that moisture is lost, which significantly reduces how much actual meat ends up in the finished product.
After processing, chicken contributes a much smaller portion of the final product than its top-of-the-list position implies.
The second ingredient is cornmeal, a coarsely milled flour made from dried corn. Corn is a cheap cereal grain that offers very little nutritional value to a dog.
For that reason, it shouldn’t be a primary ingredient in any dog food or treat.
The third ingredient is sorghum, also known as Milo, a starchy grain with a nutritional profile similar to corn. It’s gluten-free and causes a steadier blood sugar response than some other grains, so it’s considered a passable non-meat ingredient.
The fourth ingredient is chicken by-product meal, which is a dry rendered product from slaughterhouse waste. It’s made from parts left over after the prime cuts are removed, including beaks, feet, and undeveloped eggs, but not feathers.
On the upside, by-product meal is protein-dense and contains roughly 300% more protein than fresh chicken by weight.
The fifth ingredient is beet pulp, a fiber by-product of sugar beet processing. This product does contain amino acids a dog needs, but the overall formula is still considered a lower-quality option.
This treat remains a poor choice for many dog breeds.
9. Gravy Train
There’s very little real cooked bone marrow in Gravy Train. It lands at number six on the ingredient list.
That means there’s more wheat flour, meat and bone meal, sugar, natural chicken flavor, and animal fat preserved with BHA/BHT than actual bone marrow.
Dogs like the taste of sugar, which is exactly why it shows up at position five.
They’ll eat this treat eagerly, and owners tend to assume that means it’s a good one.
It isn’t.
The ingredient list is full of low-quality items, including wheat flour, meat and bone meal, sugar, natural poultry flavor, and animal fat preserved with BHA/BHT. Beyond that, there’s reduced bone marrow, calcium carbonate, flavor, malted barley, and sodium metabisulfite, plus vitamins A, B12, D3, and E supplements.
It also includes D-calcium pantothenate, niacin, riboflavin (vitamin B2), pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), and folic acid.
Many dog trainers advise against this treat because of problems that tend to show up after a few weeks of regular feeding.
10. Cesar Filets
Cesar Filets ranks among the worst dog food options, mainly because of its high salt content. The ingredient list includes water, pork liver, chicken, steak and meat by-products, corn gluten, wheat gluten, cornstarch, salt, pea fiber, sodium tripolyphosphate, calcium carbonate, added color, choline chloride, and magnesium.
The high water content carries all of those ingredients through the product. Other notable ingredients include zinc proteinate, zinc sulfate, xanthan gum, natural flavor, guar gum, natural New York strip flavor, and vitamin E supplement.
Additional ingredients include D-calcium pantothenate, biotin, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), copper sulfate, and riboflavin (vitamin B2).
The list also includes vitamin B12 supplement, potassium iodide, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin A supplement, and pyridoxine hydrochloride.
Looking at the full picture, this is a below-average product. Ingredient quality matters, but so does the actual meat content relative to fillers and by-products.
The protein in Cesar Filets is about 44%, with fat at 22% and carbohydrates at 25%. That puts it above average for protein and near average for fat.
The carbohydrate level is high compared to a standard quality canned dog food.
The added food coloring is another problem. It has no nutritional purpose and is generally something to avoid in a dog’s diet.
Final Thoughts
The label is the most useful tool you have when evaluating treats. BHA, corn syrups, artificial dyes, and vague by-product meals are the ingredients most worth avoiding, and rawhide stays near the top of the list because of the choking and blockage risk that no warning sticker fully addresses.
Treats should stay below 10% of your dog’s daily calorie intake, which is a small window that disappears quickly when you’re rewarding throughout the day without tracking portions.
Reading the full ingredient list and choosing treats with a short, recognizable set of components will serve any dog better than trusting a marketing claim on the front of the bag. When in doubt, simpler is almost always safer.
