# Beef liver training treats



## PAID BY FORD (Jul 14, 2010)

Hello Everyone, 
Quick question regarding those 100% freeze dried liver treats.Romeo loves em and I use them everyday in his training regiment, now considering I have been feeding only chicken for this first week i have owned him can these also be considered a viable source of organ meat until i start trying other things a few weeks from now? I ask this question in anticipation he may not like organ meat as so many dogs don't either.
P.S. 
Romeo says hi and thanks you all for helping his daddy feed him healthy


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## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

There's nothing wrong with using them as treats, but too many can cause diarrhea, so just watch for that. 
In the first stages of raw, don't worry so much about balance and variety, just take a nice slow transition into it. Better safe than sorry. No organ meat is fine the first two months.
I would not replace raw liver with anything else in a pmr diet... even if it means force feeding it. I would say that force feeding fresh, raw organ meat is superior to freeze dried anything.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

I think that even the freeze drying process damages some nutrients in the liver. I wouldn't substitute it for the real, raw organ meats. They are just fine to supplement with because I do think that they provide at least some, just don't give too much of them!


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

i read somewhere....that taking little bits of chicken and baking it in the oven at a low low temp will make for wonderful training treats....

unless you have a dehydrator and can do it with chicken...

if your dog is just starting on raw....and if you have a dog like mine who is food driven, you'll be using a lot of training treats, so unless he's used to liver...and doesn't have the runs....might want to think about using something less rich....

if i'm not mistaken, cooking the liver, even dehydrating it....well, you kind of lose much of the nutrition...training food needs to be lean and not high calorie or too rich, i should think....


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## bdb5853 (May 21, 2010)

Hmmmm.... I'm going to disagree here.

If you go to nutrition data (USDA's site) here:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

And compare liver cooked and liver raw right next to each other, you will see that the nutrients in the liver are actually ENHANCED by cooking. 

Nothing is depleted from the liver at all. I would assume it's because the cooking concentrates the vitamins/minerals and freeze drying should do the same. 

I don't think there's anything wrong with feeding cooked or freeze dried or dehydrated liver at all in a raw diet. No, it's not "raw", but the nutrients are not compromised. Go to the charts and compare and see for yourself.

Edit: In the case of just using the liver for treats, I see no problem at all. Just watch for loose stools and adjust accordingly.


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## Huskyluv (Jun 25, 2010)

I've tried giving freeze dried beef liver treats to my husky multiple times and even a small 1" x 1" flat square piece will give him the runs.  He also always got the runs when he had even a single piece of kibble containing beef or bison. But I can give him raw and cooked steak, beef muscle, ground beef, beef lung, beef heart with no problem. It's just the beef in kibble form and the freeze dried beef liver that does not agree with him even in the tiniest amounts. I have not tried raw beef liver because of how negative a reaction he's always had to the freeze dried form which was 100% freeze dried beef liver. I ended up giving the rest of the treats to a friend after determining it just wasn't going to work out for my dog. Weird, he also gets bully sticks on a regular basis and is just fine with it. I can't figure out why freeze dried beef liver would be a problem.


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## bdb5853 (May 21, 2010)

Huskyluv said:


> I've tried giving freeze dried beef liver treats to my husky multiple times and even a small 1" x 1" flat square piece will give him the runs.  He also always got the runs when he had even a single piece of kibble containing beef or bison. But I can give him raw and cooked steak, beef muscle, ground beef, beef lung, beef heart with no problem. It's just the beef in kibble form and the freeze dried beef liver that does not agree with him even in the tiniest amounts. I have not tried raw beef liver because of how negative a reaction he's always had to the freeze dried form which was 100% freeze dried beef liver. I ended up giving the rest of the treats to a friend after determining it just wasn't going to work out for my dog. Weird, he also gets bully sticks on a regular basis and is just fine with it. I can't figure out why freeze dried beef liver would be a problem.


My guess is that the freeze dried liver is in a concentrated form. If he's sensitive to liver, he's getting a much larger dose than in the raw form. If you want to try again, you could try just a fingernail sized piece of raw liver and build up his tolerance. However, if it's just a treat, there's really no need to feed liver at all.


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## Huskyluv (Jun 25, 2010)

bdb5853 said:


> My guess is that the freeze dried liver is in a concentrated form. If he's sensitive to liver, he's getting a much larger dose than in the raw form. If you want to try again, you could try just a fingernail sized piece of raw liver and build up his tolerance. However, if it's just a treat, there's really no need to feed liver at all.


That does make sense. And yes, it was just a treat but I like to have organ meat treats for a well balanced diet. I gave away the freeze dried beef liver treats so I don't have them to try anymore, not that I'm really keen on trying that again anyway...diarrhea is never fun to deal with. I am giving freeze dried lamb lung treats now instead. They seem to do better on lamb treats than beef anyway. I much prefer freeze dried organ meat over flour filled biscuits any day!

The loose stools over beef liver have been such a negative experience that I'm very hesitant to try liver again.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

bdb5853 said:


> Hmmmm.... I'm going to disagree here.
> 
> If you go to nutrition data (USDA's site) here:
> 
> ...


The nutrients are still there but they are assimilated differently. The body digests cooked things differently than raw things because there are molecular changes to the nutrients. This pretty much holds true for any cooked vs raw food.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

bdb5853 said:


> Hmmmm.... I'm going to disagree here.
> 
> If you go to nutrition data (USDA's site) here:
> 
> ...


actually, you're right....sort of....

but

the water is depleted, the ash is increased, as is carbs.....i used beef liver braised as my comparison...

what i probably should have stated was that liver has fat soluble vitamins...and there's a reason it should only account for a small part of a dog's diet...

water soluble vitamins can be excreted easily by the kidneys, even though you wouldn't want to overtax any organ....but easier for the kidneys than the liver to excrete too much of what it stores...

so, i'll stand by my statement that i would not use liver of any kind as a dog training treat.....

while i am not a dog trainer, i had one come over to prevent me from turning bubba into korean bbq....and the amount of turkey hot dogs and dehydrated liver should keep him in vitamin a and e for a long time....that and the nitrites in the turkey hot dog...blech..but that's a story for another time.

i would dehydrate chicken...or something that isn't so high in fat solubles.


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