Tasty Tuesday: Bravo! Crunchy Delights Turkey Recipe Review

Bravo Pet Foods, primarily a fresh-frozen raw food company, recently launched a new line of oven-baked Crunchy Delights dog treats, and Chewy got a chance to try their Turkey Recipe. 

Bravo! Crunchy Delights Turkey Recipe:

• Made in the USA; family-owned company
• All natural ingredients (preserved by mixed tocopherols & non-toxic oxygen absorber packet)
• No added hormones, antibiotics, artificial preservatives, flavors or colors
• Turkey as the first ingredient, with mixed vegetables and quinoa
• Oven baked

Smell:

I think they smell like vegetable cookies, but Chewy thinks they smell super delicious. He was definitely intrigued the moment I showed him the treat bag, and drooling soon commenced. When he was posing  for pictures with the bag in his mouth, he ran off to see if someone else would open them for him!

Hi, please feed me these treats!

Appearance:

The individual treats vary in size and shape and have an almost homemade look to them, which stands out from all the cookie-cutter bone-shaped treats available on the market. You can actually identify pieces of cranberry and oats in the treats.

Breakability:

These crunchy treats are easy to break into smaller portions, but doing so generates a lot of crumbs. It would be best not to break them over your floor unless your dog is a fine crumb vacuum.

I put 2 treats in my pocket for walkies, and the larger one had broken in half by the time we got home. My pocket did get a little crumby.

Taste:

Chewy makes a happy chewing face when he crunches away at these treats. On the downside, this often means a mess of crumbs on the floor. Sometimes he manages to clean up all the crumbs, but other times he misses one or two, especially in the grout lines of our floor. Nevertheless, he definitely thinks they are lip-smacking good.

Mmmm

Generating crumbs

Eyes on the treat!

Motivation:

These Crunchy Delights are pretty motivating for Chewy. He focuses intently on them, and will breeze through his repertoire of tricks to get one.

I'm waving, I'm waving! Treat now?

Overall rating:

I liked that these Bravo! Crunchy Delights Turkey Recipe treats are made in the US from natural ingredients, with meat as the first ingredient. Chewy loved the taste and smell, and was beyond willing to work for them. They are easy to break into smaller pieces, but I wish they did not get so crumbly. I would not shove the treat bag in my backpack for fear of them turning into bits, but I think they would be fine sitting in a car door, if you wanted to bring them on an outing. We give these treats 3 1/2 paws up.

3 1/2 paws up for Bravo! Crunchy Delights Turkey Recipe

Disclaimer: Matrix Partners provided us with a free bag of Bravo Crunchy Delights Turkey Recipe. We did not receive any monetary compensation for this post. All opinions expressed in this review are our own.

FitDog Friday: Find the Treat to Chase Away Rainy Day Blues

The beginning of autumn is bringing lots of rain to Chewytown, which means rainy day blues for this pup. 

Sigh...

Chewy's fur soaks up mud very easily, so we try to keep walks to a minimum when it's raining. To keep him from tracking muddy pawprints all over the house, I have him sit and stay on his absorbent mat. (This one is an Ikea bathmat - it was only $10 and comes in a variety of colors. It's a much better deal than most doormats marketed specifically for doggies, and probably works just as well!)

Rocking the scraggly, wet belly fur look

The lack of long walks can make Chewy very hyper, and one of the ways we burn off all that energy is by playing Find the Treat in the house. Chewy thoroughly enjoys playing Find the Treat because there might be a nibble of food around every corner! 

To start, I have Chewy wait somewhere while I hide treats out of his view. This is a great opportunity to practice the stay command, as you can have your dog stay in another room so you don't need to worry about him/her sneaking a peek at where you're placing the yums. Just make sure they don't stealthily come out and steal the treats before you're done!

Waiting patiently

I only hide a couple treats at a time and space them out around the house so that Chewy gets more exercise for less food. Chewy is very food motivated, so he pretty much runs from one spot to the next. Sometimes I like to just wander around with the treats so that the smell wafts around everywhere, leading Chewy on a wild sniff hunt. To keep the search fun, I place some treats in plain sight, some under furniture or dog toys, and some hidden behind table legs, doors or his water bowl. When I'm done hiding treats, I return to Chewy and release him from his stay. He usually knows what's going on, but telling him to "Go find it!" always does the trick. The first few times, you might have to lead your dog to the treats so they understand the game. When we first started playing, I would let Chewy sniff the treats before I hid them so he'd know what he was to search for.

And he's off!

Chewy runs off sniffing the air, the floor, around every corner...

Downward dog under the doggy bed

A quick nose shove to get under the toy

Sometimes Chewy gets distracted by other food smells, but he quickly gets back on track.

Tomatoes not for me?

When Chewy has found them all, I tell him "No more" so he knows. Sometimes he doesn't believe me, though, and has to do another thorough search of the house before settling down. He is definitely a wishful thinker.

For a low calorie option, sometimes I use baby carrots or green beans, and I even cut them up into little pieces. They are less fragrant than meaty treats, but Chewy typically has no trouble finding them all. We always play multiple rounds at a time because just one is never satisfying for Chewy the food-lover, and it also gets him running around more. 

Again?

Playing Find the Treat always chases away those rainy day blues in our house!

We are joining the FitDog Friday hop hosted by My GBGV Life,
SlimDoggy and To Dog with Love.

Wordless Wednesday

Chewy Goes Apple Picking

It's apple season! Over the weekend, we took Chewy upstate to Wright's farm for his first apple picking adventure. 

(The circle at the top right is an apple cider donut- at first I thought it was a sad representation of an apple!)

They have a farm stand and bakery, as well as 453 acres of land (so many apples!). There is an admission fee of $10 per adult, which includes a 1-peck bag for you to fill with apples. You drive your car directly into the orchard, and there's a large grassy parking lot where many visitors set up picnic blankets and BBQ grills. Interspersed in those groups were lots of doggies! It was slow going through the parking lot because Chewy had to greet all those pups!

The orchard was full of rows and rows of apple trees, in many different varieties. 

There were golden apples, so we had to pick some of those! 

They're all for me, right?

Chewy really enjoyed the lush greenery on the edges of the orchard. Thankfully, we didn't have a problem with ticks or other bugs.

There were "scenic wagon rides" through a small section of the orchard. Chewy loved the wind in his fur, and licked his chops when we were close to the apple trees.

There was also a resident doggy that rode around in a golf cart with his orchard-tending daddy. Naturally, he and Chewy had a few pee battles. His daddy was busy talking to customers, so I didn't get the dog's name, but he was a real snuggle bug!

I liked how welcoming the farm was toward doggies and the extensive variety and abundance of apples. However, some sections had a lot of powder around the trees that I assume was either pesticide or herbicide. The apples also felt powdery throughout the orchard, so I didn't let Chewy pick up any. (That's also why Chewy's leash is different colors in these photos. We changed from long leash to short leash to keep him away from bad things more easily)

As we drove out of the orchard, an attendant checked our car to make sure we weren't taking more apples than we paid for. She even wanted us to pop the trunk, but then Chewy stuck his head out from the back, so she was like "Oh, nevermind!" 

Next, we checked out the farm stand. They had all sorts of fall goodies, including flowers, gourds, pumpkins and squashes. Chewy thought everything smelled delicious. We bought some grilled chicken legs for lunch, and since they had an unseasoned option, we got one of those for Chewy. 

***Don't let your dog eat the drumstick bone!
It is a choking hazard, and may cause all sorts of internal damage***
I rip the meat off to offer to Chewy.  

After collecting lots of apples, getting some exercise, and filling up his tummy, Chewy was all set to head home. I wonder if he thinks all those apples are for him!

Ready to go home!

Wordless Wednesday

Mid-Autumn Festival = Pomelo Hat!

Yesterday's Wordless Wednesday post featured Chewy wearing something silly: a pomelo hat!

Monday was Mid-Autumn Festival, a Chinese holiday celebrating the moon and harvest. It coincides with the full moon, and even though it was cloudy here, it was still quite bright out at night.

Chewy in the moonlight	Full moon in the clouds

Pomelo, a large citrus fruit, is one of the foods typically eaten as part of the celebration. It tastes like a sweeter version of grapefruit, with thicker meat.

Pomelo, with Chewy for scale

Can I eat it like this?

To prepare pomelo, you cut off the top and score the sides, and then peel off the rind in one piece. You eat it like you would orange segments, except you don't eat the membranes that separate the segments - they are thick and fibrous. Also, don't eat the seeds! Some of them are quite large.

Pomelo peel

Children wear the pomelo peel as a hat to bring good fortune, and Chewy, the baby of the family, has been donning a pomelo hat every year:

6 month old Chewy was a bit confused

1.5 year old Chewy was unfazed

This year, Chewy was very happy to see the pomelo.

Pomelo time!

Happy Chewy in pomelo hat*

I smell delicious!*

Pomelo hat has no flavor

*Chewy was paid in pomelo for his cooperation.

If your dog can handle citrus, s/he can probably eat pomelo (in moderation!). Chewy loves to eat pomelo. The first time he tried it, he spat it out a few times because he was not sure if he liked it, but now he gobbles it up eagerly. If you start peeling apart a pomelo segment, he sits nicely next to you, waiting for his share.