Available at Mr. Chewy: Nootie’s YumZies

A HUGE fan of dog treats, Kiko, Millie and Riley can generally sniff out the good stuff when it arrives in boxes at the house.  Like vultures, they circle the box as if it were prey: sniffing and pawing at it and whining for me to, “Open it, Mom!”  Granted, they can’t talk but if they could I imagine what each of their voices would sound like, all in harmony as they beg me to open the box to let the surprise out – and it better be good!

When our pals over at Mr. Chewy invited us to try Nootie’s yumZies™, I hopped over to check out the ingredients before responding.  This is something I do whenever we are asked to review pet food and treats.  While most of the ingredients didn’t throw up a red flag, one did: Sodium Bisulfate.  For those of you that do not know what Sodium Bisulfate is, it’s synthethic vitamin K and it’s an ingredient that is surrounded in controversy but is included in a lot of dog and human products.  For more information on Sodium Bisulfate, simply do a search and you will come up with several articles on the subject.

After I realized that this treat contained Sodium Bisulfate, I declined the review.  To make a long story short, another blogger also had some concerns and researched the ingredient.  She sent an email to Mr. Chewy as well as the makers of yumZies, Nootie, with links about the controversial ingredient.  Concerned, the Nootie representative did some investigating and discovered that this ingredient isn’t even in the treat!  The lab report confirmed this (I’ve seen the report) and so Nootie had 5000 mislabeled bags.  I also received an email from a representative of Nootie, Lonnie, who said, “That was an error on our bag manufactures communication with our factory. We had specifically given our factory a list of ingredients not to be in our products and that list some how got merged with our ingredients list and was never scrubbed properly.  Sodium Bisulfate has never been on any of our products and will never be. We have changed our packaging and you will be one of the first people to see our revised bags.”

Once I found out that the treat didn’t contain this controversial ingredient, I extended an offer to Mr. Chewy to move forward with a review.  I was humbled by the email I received from Mr. Chewy, which stated, “Because of your due diligence (and the other blogger) Nootie was able to find a mistake & we are humbled by your tenacity towards quality ingredients and accountability within the industry. We truly appreciate your strive for excellence in pet food & treat ingredients.”

As pet parents we certainly do need to read the labels and understand what it is we are looking at.  There are too many pets getting sick and even dying and we need to make sure that what we are feeding them is made with quality ingredients.

YumZies by Nootie are made right here in the USA.  These soft bit-sized dog treats are grain-free and contain Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, which supports healthy skin and coat.  I received the Natural Hickory Bacon Flavor for the girls to try out.  So, you can only imagine their little noses going into overtime when I opened the bag!

Ingredients:
Chicken, Potato Flour, Pea Powder, Tapioca Starch, Glycerin, Fish Oil (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Pea Flour, Natural Flavor, Salt, Natural Hickory Smoke Flavor, Natural Bacon Flavor, Lecithin, Garlic Powder, Brewer’s Dried Yeast,  Phosphoric Acid, Ginger Powder, Ascorbic Acid, Cultured Dextrose, Mixed Tocopherols (preservative), Citric Acid (preservative), Rosemary Extract. (As an fyi, there are some articles you can find on the internet that talk about Rosemary being an issue for Epileptic dogs.)