Choosing Your Pets Easter Egg

Special Easter Eggs Designed Just For Your Pet!

_{Images courtesy Pets at Home}

It’s nearly chocolate season and as you sit on your settee eating your chocolate egg, pleading eyes will be looking at you adoringly, waiting for a piece of the action.

No! Chocolate is toxic for pets and can have life threatening consequences for our furry friends.

UK pet stores and shops up and down the country are now geared up stocking a range of dedicated pet Easter eggs for dogs, cats and small pets made of specially selected products that are suitable for our best friends.

Who is selling Pet Easter eggs?

So who sells these special eggs?

Pets at Home, @PetsatHome, the huge UK pet store group, who operate hundreds of stores up and down the UK and a busy online store have a special dedicated range of seven Easter eggs waiting for pets.

Whats in them?

There’s sugar, vegetable oils, carob powder, soya, milk powder, whey powder, dicalcium phosphate and additivies and definately no cocoa powder!

What is carob powder?

Carob is the pet-friendly ingredient alternative to giving your pet human chocolate.

According to Healthline.com who state ‘Carob powder is also called carob flour, is a cocoa powder alternative. It’s made from dried, roasted carob tree pods and looks a lot like cocoa powder. Carob powder is often used as a natural sweetener in baked goods. It’s sweet and has a unique taste’.

What are the ranges?

Cleverly designed to look like our traditional Easter human chocolate eggs displayed in bright foil packaging and printed colourful eye catching boxes, sold in a range of sizes suitable from large adult dogs to small, whilst not suitable for puppies under 3 months.

There’s carob flavour and peanut available as a treat bar if you prefer. Cats haven’t escaped either, they have a special egg designed in a special yogurt and catnip flavour!

Can small pets eat them?

Pets at Home have provided tinier sized eggs suitable for small animals such as rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, chinchillas, mice, gerbils and degus in a special dandelion flavour, but sadly not suitable for ferrets.

How to feed them

It’s best to break the eggs down in bite size pieces and ensure they are eaten as part of your pet’s balanced diet provided as a treat not as a main meal! It’s also advisable to ensure your pet has access to fresh drinking water.

Image courtesy Pet Planet – Rosewood Easter Choc Egg For Dogs

Pet Planet @PetPlanetcouk sell the Rosewood UK as featured, made in a single egg shape for dogs made with carob, being a cocoa, wheat and gluten free recipe.

If your prefer buying a cute new toy for your pet at Easter then The Happy Pet Egg Noggins Dog Toy, from Pet Planet featured above, will bounce not as you expect and keep your pet entertained for hours over Easter whilst you indulge in eating your chocolate egg!

Hatchwells make Easter eggs for dogs available from Petshop.co.uk and produce a full pet range including small pets and even a Horse & Pony Easter Egg which can be bought direct from Hatchwells.

If you prefer there’s always scrumptious chocolatey looking special doggie cake treats including muffins, doughnuts, treats, cookie and popcorn tubs from Not In the Dog House @notinthedoghou made by Barking Bakery.

Happy Chocolate Easter!

When was the first Easter egg produced?

Eggs had been evident in many civilizations since earliest times, painted and decorated even in the Middle Ages, given as Easter gifts.

Chocolate Easter eggs were being developed in France and Germany in the 1840’s after a type of eating chocolate had been designed years earlier. It took a few years until a hollowed out egg had been made.

By 1875, hollowed out eggs using moulds were being used by Cadbury’s with ‘dark’ chocolate with a plain smooth surface and were filled with dragees, similar to the coated almonds we know today. The eggs became decorated with marzipan flowers and chocolate piping.

The breakthrough came when Cadburys in 1905 marketed their chocolate Easter egg similar to the ones we still know today.

Europeans still keep the old traditions and take great care in painting and decorating eggs to give as Easter gifts.

Is normal chocolate OK to give your dog?

PetCheck frequently write blogs when it’s chocolate season to remind owners about not offering your pet your chocolate as it is so toxic for them and too much can be life threatening.

You can read the pet food feature and blogs which provides useful information about why you shouldn’t feed your pet with the ‘wrong’ sort of human foods.

• What Food and Drinks Should I Avoid Giving My Pets?

Our recent pet food blogs include

• Best Pet Hampers
• Choosing To Give Your Pet A TV Diner?
• Choosing To Give Your Pet A Valentine’s Day Chocolate?
• Choosing Your Pet To Eat A Chinese Take-away
• Choosing Your Pet To Eat A Traditional Christmas Lunch
• Choosing Your Pet To Eat A Vegan
• Are Halloween Pumpkins Pet-Friendly?