Pumpkin Dog Treats

Pumpkin dog treats are baked biscuits, soft chews or freeze dried pieces made around cooked pumpkin, and the ingredient list shows how much pumpkin is in them. Plain pumpkin is the only version that stays a vegetable; everything else is pumpkin plus whatever the recipe needs.

What pumpkin treats are made of

Start with the word on the front of the bag. "Pumpkin" can mean a treat made mostly of cooked pumpkin, or a biscuit made mostly of flour with pumpkin somewhere in it. The front of the bag tells you the flavor. The back tells you the recipe.

Most baked pumpkin treats pair pumpkin with a base such as flour or oats and a binder that holds the shape. A soft chew is made to stay pliable. A baked biscuit is finished in the oven until it is crisp. A freeze dried treat holds its shape from the drying itself, so it needs far less holding together.

Pumpkin on its own is cooked and mashed, then canned or frozen, and a maker can use it in that form or dried. The label shows which.

Plain pumpkin versus pie filling

The difference between plain canned pumpkin and pie filling is the sugar. Plain canned pumpkin is cooked pumpkin and nothing else. Pie mix is pumpkin with sugar and spice stirred in, made for people to bake.

USDA FoodData Central lists plain canned pumpkin, without salt, at about 3 grams of sugar per 100 grams, which is about 8 grams in a cup. Its pie mix entry gives no separate sugar figure, but USDA FoodData Central puts a cup of canned pumpkin pie mix at about 71 grams of carbohydrate and 280 calories, against about 20 grams and 83 calories for a cup of plain pumpkin. Turn a pie mix can over and the sugar is right there on the ingredient list.

That is why the first rule for pumpkin at home is to buy the can that says pumpkin and has no other word on the ingredient list. If you cook it yourself, steam it plain. Spice such as nutmeg or cinnamon belongs to the pie, and the dog's portion stays unspiced.

Baked, freeze dried and soft forms

Baked pumpkin treats are crunchy biscuits. They keep well, and they break into crumbs.

Soft pumpkin chews are easy to break by hand and fast to swallow, which makes them useful for training. The trade off is that soft pumpkin chews break easily but dry out once the bag is open, so reseal it and use the bag up.

Freeze dried pumpkin treats are the lightest. They are dry and porous, and they arrive at room temperature in a sealed bag. One of them is the seasonal Pup-Ornaut Freeze Dried Dog Ice Cream in Pumpkin and Apple, which Sniff and Shift freeze dries in small batches in Malvern, Pennsylvania; our guide to ice cream for dogs covers how that form works and how to serve it.

Whichever form you choose, break one open and look at it before you hand it over. Check that the inside is dry and even, with no damp spots or crumbling edges, and smell it: a treat that smells off is not worth giving, whatever the date on the bag says.

Match the form to the use. A biscuit for the end of a walk, a soft chew for a training pouch, a freeze dried scoop for a day when you want something that looks like a dessert and weighs next to nothing.

Reading the order of ingredients

The ingredient list is the most honest part of the package. FDA rules require ingredients to be listed in descending order by weight, heaviest first, so the first few lines make up most of the treat.

If pumpkin is the first or second ingredient, the treat is built on pumpkin. If flour, starch or sweetener comes first and pumpkin follows, the treat is pumpkin flavored. Neither is wrong. They are two different treats, and the label lets you see which one is in your hand.

Check the rest of the list for anything you did not expect. Sweeteners and spices are the two to look for. The FDA warns that xylitol, a sweetener in some sugar free products, is dangerous to dogs, so read the ingredient list for it on any treat that tastes sweet.

Short lists are easier to read than long ones. A pumpkin treat with five ingredients tells you its whole recipe in one glance, while a list of fifteen takes patience.

For more fruit and vegetable treats, the fruit and vegetable dog treats collection lists what is in stock.

When pumpkin shows up in the year

Pumpkin is an autumn flavor. It appears in shops as the weather turns, it stays through the holidays, and then it thins out. Some makers sell pumpkin treats all year, and some make them in a single batch each fall.

The seasonal Pumpkin and Apple scoop follows the calendar, and for the winter side of it, see our guide to Christmas dog treats. If a pumpkin treat is out of stock, that is usually the season, not a problem with the recipe.

If you cook with pumpkin yourself, label what is in the pot. A batch with spice in it is a batch for people, and a batch without is the one a dog can share a spoonful of, so keep the two apart on the stove and in the refrigerator.

Keep your own can of plain pumpkin in the cupboard for the weeks when no treat is in the shop, and spoon a little onto a lick mat or over regular food, not instead of it.

Common questions

Can dogs have pumpkin pie filling?

Pie filling is pumpkin with sugar and spice added, so it is not the same food as plain pumpkin. USDA FoodData Central puts a cup of pie mix at more than three times the calories of a cup of plain canned pumpkin. If you want pumpkin for a dog, buy the plain kind and read the label.

What is plain canned pumpkin?

It is cooked, pureed pumpkin with nothing else added, and the label should list pumpkin as the only ingredient. It is not the same as pie filling, which is sweetened and spiced.

Are pumpkin dog treats seasonal?

Pumpkin flavors are most common in autumn, when pumpkin is in the shops, but many makers sell pumpkin treats all year. Seasonal items change from one batch to the next, so check the collection for what is in stock.

How do I read the ingredients on a pumpkin treat?

FDA rules list ingredients in descending order by weight, heaviest first. If pumpkin is first or second on the list, it is a main ingredient. If it comes after flour and sweetener, the treat is pumpkin flavored.