Product Review: Minties Dental Treats And Hip&Joint

It's a Twofer! We were approached by a VetIQ rep who wanted to know if we wanted to try out Minties dental treats and one other product from a list; I selected Hip&Joint.

We got them really fast, and as always, Elka was quite eager to sample the goods.

We tried the Minties first, because I figured I wanted to gauge the efficacy of their extended use, if only over the course of one bag. Overall, I can say that I feel they do their job quite well. Elka doesn't have a whole lot of buildup in the first place, but has even less after a bag's application of Minties.

As a blanket statement, I'm not super crazy about the ingredients in either treat. In the case of the Minties, it's about comparable to Dentastix, so whatever.

The biggest plus of the Minties is they take Elka a few minutes to actually chew. That's the biggest thing we run into with, say, Dentastix; yes, I see an improvement in her teeth, but it's hard to say why, since they last about thirty seconds. Minties, Elka has to work on, between her chompy teeth in the back, so I think that's a tremendous contributing factor. The recommendation on the bag for these was one a day.

And she seems to think they're pretty rad. Is it funny that so many dog treats are shaped like bones? "Bones", though I guess it's supposed to be a femur? The dog doesn't care, certainly. I kind of think it's cute, actually, and it seems to make for a good chewable shape.

They do freshen her breath as well. This is not to say Elka has bad breath, per se, but she is a dog and licks herself, so there's room for improvement.

In the Hip & Joint, the listed inactive ingredients are not what I typically go for. Fish oil is good, obviously, and many people give their dogs fish oil tablets as part of the daily routine. I'm not a big fan of things like Hickory smoke flavor or pork gelatin, though I suppose those two things contribute heavily to both the texture and general aroma of the treats.

They also, to me, smell far less pleasing. They are a good sized, dense treat, and Elka seems to quite enjoy the smell! They do not cancel out the olfactory bonus of the Minties.

The recommendation on the bag for these, for Elka's weight, was two a day. She wished it was more.

Overall, I definitely recommend the Minties. In the future, I'm going to see about getting these instead of Dentastix because, though convenient, since they're at just about every grocery store but don't do as good a job. The Hip&Joint, I'm not sure whether I'll get them again. They're definitely more to be treated as a "vitamin" than a training treat, and it's everybody's decision, really, whether to look at nutrients vs. ingredients. There are no dyes, so I'm very happy with that!

For more information on the products, you can visit http://vetiq.com/ and  http://www.mintiestreats.com/


Disclosure: The opinions in this article are my own. I don't work for, or with, any brand mentioned in this article, nor do I have any official relationship with them. I have a relationship with GigaSavvy, for whom I create original editorial content.

FTC disclosure: The opinions in this article are my own, and I was compensated for this post.