Freeze Dried Cat Treats,
Made by Hand in West Virginia

Most treat companies build for dogs and hope cats come along

We never understood that.

Cats are harder to feed. They are pickier, they have less margin for error in their diet, and they will walk away from something they ate happily for two years. A treat designed for a seventy pound Labrador and shrunk down is not a cat treat.

So we make ours with one ingredient and nothing else. No fillers, no grains, no artificial flavors, nothing sprayed on afterward to make it taste like food. Turn the bag over and you will find one word.

The five our cat customers come back for

The organ meat nobody else makes for cats

Look at the cat lines from the big freeze dried brands. Chicken, salmon, tuna, duck, whitefish, turkey. All muscle meat and fish.

Almost none of them make liver or heart for cats, and that is the more interesting half of the story nutritionally.

Taurine, and why cats are different

Taurine is an amino acid. Most animals make enough of their own. Cats cannot, so they have to get it from what they eat, which is why it is considered an essential nutrient for them rather than a bonus.

It supports normal heart function, healthy vision and normal retinal function, normal nervous system and immune function, and digestion.

Heart carries more taurine than muscle meat does. Our Beef Heart and Chicken Hearts are both natural sources of it.

Liver, and why a little goes a long way

Liver is one of the most nutrient dense things you can feed a cat. It is also very high in preformed vitamin A, which is fat soluble, meaning the body stores it rather than passing the excess.

That is not a reason to avoid liver. It is a reason to feed it as a small, regular treat rather than by the handful. We wrote the longer version in Beef Liver and Beef Heart for Cats.

For the cat who has turned down everything

Every cat owner has one. The cat who only drinks from a running faucet. The one who turns up her nose at food that cost more than your lunch and then begs for a plain piece of chicken. The one who loved the same treat for three years and then decided on a Tuesday that it was beneath her.

Here is what we have learned from customers: picky cats are usually not being difficult about taste. They are reacting to everything else in the bag.

A commercial cat treat can carry fifteen ingredients. Plant proteins, starches to hold the shape, flavor sprayed on after baking, preservatives, coloring a cat cannot even see. Cats have a far sharper sense of smell than we do and a much shorter list of things they are willing to eat.

Take all of that away and what is left is the smell of actual food. That is usually the thing that finally lands.

The trick that works when nothing else does

Crush a piece up and scatter it over her regular food.

One of our customers figured this out on her own and told us it works every time. The smell does the convincing, and once a cat connects that smell to the bowl she will usually take the whole piece next time. Salmon and chicken crumble most easily.

Why freeze dried

Freeze drying pulls the moisture out at low temperature instead of cooking it off with heat. The texture stays light and the pieces break apart easily, which matters more for a cat than for a dog.

It also means the treats keep for a long time on a shelf with nothing added to preserve them. No refrigeration, no humectants to keep them soft, no shortened shelf life to work around.

If you want the longer comparison, we wrote it up in Freeze Dried vs Dehydrated.

Made here, by us

Just Paws and Enjoy Life started with Huxley Jack, a dog we loved who had pancreatitis. Reading the labels on what we had been feeding him is what set all of this in motion. Half of what was in those bags we could not pronounce.

Everything we sell is made by hand in small batches in Parkersburg, West Virginia, with ingredients sourced in the United States. Nothing is co-packed and nothing is made overseas.

That has not changed and it is not going to.

How to serve them

Start small. One or two pieces for a cat who has never had them.

For a suspicious cat, break a piece up and scatter the crumbs over her food. Once she connects the smell to the bowl she will usually take the whole piece next time.

Keep treats to around ten percent of daily calories, with the rest coming from complete and balanced food. With liver, err on the smaller side. Fresh water always, particularly with freeze dried food.