Scooby Snacks for Dogs- Good Taste, Not Good Value

The store was all out of my favorite Alpo Variety Snaps, so I bought a box of Snausages Scoopy Snacks. It was the same weight box, and about the same price, but there are many fewer pieces in the box so it isnt as good a value.

I like to be able to give my dog a treat a couple of times a day for good behavior without having to worry about adding a lot of calories, since she tends to get chubby if we dont watch her diet. This box of dog snacks appeared to be what I was looking for as an alternative to my first choice. The pictures of the snacks on the box are a good size. But when I opened the box, I quickly saw that the actual dog treats are bigger than the pictures, and bigger than what I really wanted to use for a single treat.

In fact, there are only about half as many Scooby Snacks in a box as there are Variety Snaps. The Snaps have 7 treats to an ounce, and the Scooby Snacks only have about 3.5. They do break in half fairly easily, so this could be a solution, but they also seem crumbly when broken. These are biscuit-like treats, something like a hard cracker, not a soft chewy square.

Also, when broken, you can see that the coloring is only on the surface of the biscuit. That just emphasizes to me that the coloring is purely for show. Also, the shapes are described as fun, a bone, a treasure chest, a pizza and a plain round thing that I guess is supposed to be a cheese wheel. Your kids might care, but the dog certainly doesnt.

Supposedly they come in four flavors: cheese, beef, chicken and pizza. The box I bought has almost no cheese ones in it, and is not included in the picture. Each Scooby Snack appears to be about the same dimensions as a Variety Snap (about 1.25 inches across), but they are much thicker.

The box has a Scooby-Doo hidden picture game on the back, making me again think that they are marketing these snacks to kids more than they are for dogs.

The primary ingredient is grains, with meat by-products as the third item on the list. None of these snack biscuits is going to win nutritional contests, but thats ok. In fact, the box contains a warning that they are only to be used as a treat, and dont have the food value to be used as a regular food. There is no calorie count listed on the box.

Scooby Snacks are a Snausages product, made by DelMonte Foods. The box says Visit us at DelMonte.com, but if you do, there is no link to their pet food line, and a search comes up empty. Makes one wonder where they really come from.

Does the dog care about any of this? Not one bit. She likes them just fine, and would be happy if her owner (me) were not so stingy and frugal. But I dont think Ill be buying these again- too gimmicky.