Choosing To Give Your Pet A TV Dinner?

What Are Pet TV Dinners?

Over the past year has seen a rise to stay and work from home, live in our pyjamas for whole days and generally eat and drink more coupled with many thousands of households buying new or additional pets.

Television has had a mini re-resurgence, has become more important to us, when there is less that we can do during the pandemic years. Much of the UK public who never really bothered watching before are reporting that they are now watching chunks of tv hours a day, catching up through streaming services, films, documentary and old soaps on terrestrial.

There’s one thing households are doing more for their pets and that’s cosying up on settees together, treating themselves with takeaways and pet treats, having more evenings-in than out, watching tv together.

Are you buying pet tv treats?

When we talk about pet TV dinners we mean the enormous pet treat market that’s continued to grow year-on-year in the UK. Whilst we may help ourselves to a Chinese take-away meal, (which incidentally shouldn’t be given to pet), we may feel guilty as they lovingly look at us with appealing eyes, licking their lips and pets looking hard done-by by our failed responses to give them some human food ‘leftovers’ despite already having fed them their main meals of the day.

We feel compelled to give our pets treats, that’s dogs, cats and even indoor pet rabbits where there’s an estimated 330,000 or so hopping around our living room floors!

PET TREATS come in all shapes, sizes, flavours, packages and tins.

There’s one particular pet company that stocks more than 150 different types of dog treats called Not In The Dog House with fabulous dog popcorn and dog crisps, dog beer, organic apple and cheese, antler chews, lamb meat bites and more. Everything you can think of seems to appear in their vast pet range which isn’t only for dogs, but there’s cat treat availability too!

*Featuring above Popcorn and Crisps for your dog made by the Yorkshire Crisp company for Best In Show available now at Not In The Dog House.

Perhaps even better, there’s a natural healthy box available, perfect for Valentine’s night love-in with your dog and for the rest of the month to munch and chew through.

*Featuring above, natural treat gift box full of wholesome and nutritious goodies from leading natural food brands Green & Wilds, Billy & Margot and The Innocent Hound available from Not In The Dog House, @notinthedoghou #notinthedoghouse, a perfect present idea for Mothering Sunday if your mum owns a pooch!

Are treats good for your pets?

Vets believe treats should be given in moderation in a controlled diet where they represent no more than 10% of your pets daily diet.

Whilst we want our pets to share in our lives, its important to keep them healthy and well. Don’t substitute treats for meals and always check the package contents carefully. Check the calories stated for each portion and work this into their normal diet calorific count for the day.

The Pet Foods Manufacturers were already reporting, 2019, of the alarming growth of obesity of pets in the UK, where their vets report confirmed that 51% of dogs, 44% of cats and 29% of small mammals were overweight or obese, so it’s important to stick to guidelines issued.

Safe storage

Storing pet food safely is a must. Treats are generally smaller packages but still pose a risk of toxicity if your pet manages to eat more than the manufacturer’s guidelines.

Not In The Dog House stock a range of storage boxes for main meals and kibble and have a particularly pretty ceramic dog TREAT JAR, featured below, which is perfect to display on your kitchen worktop, storing this out of the way of pets, being heavy duty and difficult for even the best scavenging pet to access.

Fat rabbits

There’s nearly a million pet rabbits kept in the UK and obesity is an issue. The Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund provide a useful, factual online page outlining the problems with guides and tools for pet owners, Is your Rabbit too Fat?

Rabbits should not be fed dog and cat manufactured treats where owners should stick to providing a herbivore diet, being given the correct vegetables and fruit as a treat. Read more on Petcheck.UK Pet Food page.

Helpful Petcheck tips to provide your vet in a food emergency

Should you find yourself with a pet that suddenly is acting out of character or you find the remnants of eaten human foods, then it’s important talk to your vet immediately.

• Produce the left-overs of what may have been eaten, inhaled or what your pet has been in contact with.

• Produce the wrapper, tin, container of what was eaten, inhaled or your pet exposed to. If a suspected chemical, for example, you should take preventative care when touching and sealing the contents or take veterinary advice if suspected of being a dangerous chemical to both pets and humans.

• How much you consider they may have eaten or been exposed to.

• When your pet was exposed, how long ago, minutes, hours or days.

• How your pet may be unwell, the symptoms showing or not showing.

• Do not try to make your pet sick. This can cause other complications, which may harm your pet.

• Do not wait for your pet to become unwell. Vets can treat pets for toxicity but the sooner they are presented with the sick animal, the easier it is likely to be to aid a full recovery.