Chewy trachea: a treat that treats

One of Susie-Belle’s favourite healthy treats that we give her, Renae and Twinkle too is dried trachea. We can source dried beef or venison quite easily and the hard, dried cartilage tubes provide a chew that lasts half an hour or so, depending on the size of the piece we give. Trachea is essentially the windpipe of an animal and is soft cartilage rather than bone but when dried it becomes crunchy and gradually softens into a gloopy, chewy, messy, must-be delicious (this last bit I’m only guessing at) snack. From what I’ve found, it’s low fat and healthy.

I’ve been hoping for some time to find fresh trachea, even visiting the local abattoir in France to find some with no luck. Then recently I have found a UK supplier who will send them frozen to us so I made an order a couple of weeks ago and now have a few stashed in the freezer to bring out as a tasty breakfast treat for the girls. 

One reason I’ve been keen to include trachea in their diets, especially Susie-Belle’s is that it provides a good, natural, dietary source of glucosamine, which is important in helping maintain the health of joints, especially post injury or as dogs age. Susie-Belle, we hate to say it, is getting on a little, we don’t know for certain of course how old she is, but we can’t hide from the reality that she isn’t a young spring chicken. Probably more relevant than her biological age, is the hard life she has survived and the toll multiple pregnancies would have taken on her. So, I do all I can with her diet to keep her as healthy as possible as a general principle, but specifically use foods that may help slow up any arthritic changes her joints might be undergoing.

At Easter in France she did cause herself an injury by jumping out of the back of the car and then ended up hobbling for several weeks, the vet said it felt like it was her hip that was the problem. We made her take it a bit easy and we haven’t let her jump off the bed or out of the car since, when she did manage to do it on the odd occasion, she would always be hobbling again the next day, so we’re very careful now to prevent her jarring herself like this.

For a couple of months now I have been adding green lipped mussel to her diet, this is supposed to be helpful for joint issues, and a herbal-nutritional supplement that our French vet recommended a few years ago with Jasmine when she was stiffening up, it’s a combination of herbs and glucosamine chondroitin. We’re now coming to the end of the batch and what I’ve decided to do with Susie-Belle as she is now moving well, no hobbling and doesn’t appear to have any stiffness, is to take these out of her diet now and rely on her regular foods, things like the trachea, both dried and fresh and we’ll see how she gets along in the next few weeks. I can always reintroduce what I need to, but I’m keen to get what she needs from her foods wherever possible rather than rely solely on supplements.

Whatever happens, all three dogs are not going to be unhappy being given one of their favourite treats, trachea is always popular here.