When it comes to keeping your Shiba Inu fed and obedient, treats will certainly do the trick. However, you don’t want to over-feed your pooch, as Shibas have a tendency to put on weight. Therefore, you need to make sure you give your dog the nutrition he needs. That way he will stay slim but well-fed. The following products are highly rated on Amazon, thereby making it easy to make a choice. Let’s look at the most popular beef jerky treats and other snacks below.
Beef jerky and other single-ingredient meat treats are a solid choice for a Shiba Inu when they are genuinely just meat, low in additives, and counted into the daily calorie budget. Shibas gain weight quietly, so the trick is not which jerky you buy but how much and how often you hand it out. The best training treats are high-value, easy to break into small pieces, and made from a named protein with no artificial colors, sugars, or fillers. Treat quality matters, but treat discipline matters more.
The short version, in four parts:
- Pick single-ingredient or short-ingredient jerky from a named protein, made in a country you trust.
- Break treats small so a training session does not become a second dinner.
- Keep total treats to a modest slice of daily calories, roughly ten percent as a common guideline.
- Watch for hidden salt, sugar, and glycerin in cheaper jerky, and skip anything with a long mystery label.
NomNomNom Dog Jerky Treats
These treats have a nearly 5-star rating on the Amazon site. One of the reviewers commented that she could even feed these treats to her dog who suffers from skin allergies. They are 100% beef strips, so you don’t have to worry about fillers or by-products – something that can make a dog sick and lower its resistance to disease. Besides giving your dog a raw food diet, these strips are the next best thing to total canine nutrition. You can also buy NomNomNom dog jerky treats in chicken.
Product Highlights
Let’s look at some of the product’s highlights of this Amazon Choice product:
- The single ingredient in the jerky is made of dehydrated beef or USDA certified chicken breast.
- The all-natural treat contains nothing artificial in terms of colors, flavors, additives, or fillers.
- The high-protein products are ideal for dog obedience training when broken into smaller pieces.
- The USA-produced treats have been developed by Nom Nom’s veterinary nutritionists.
Moreover, if you have a cat in your house, he can also share the same treat with your Shiba, thereby making this treat both practical and super dog-and-cat friendly. You can learn more about the beef or chicken jerky treats by clicking on this link. This product can be fed to a younger or senior dog with good results. It sells for around $20.00 and is returnable, provided you keep the receipt. While you may pay a little more for this product, you will also save money at the vet’s office at the same time.
Nuke’s Natural Hip and Joint Dog Treats
Does your Shiba Inu have some joint or hip problems? If you want to ensure your dog’s joint health, you need to find treats that will support this goal. One of the highly rated products, in this respect, is Nuke’s Natural Hip and Joint Dog Treats. Not only are these treats favored by Shiba Inus, they get high marks from their pet parents.
You can get the treats in beef, chicken, or peanut butter and oats. The doggy treats, which are available in 6 oz. and 16 oz. pouches, sell for about $1.19 per ounce. They are the ideal treats for older dogs and give younger dogs the nutrition they need to stay active as they age.
That is because Nuke’s Natural Hip and Joint Dog Treats contain the following:
- Nutrition in the form of 300mg of glucosamine and 50mg of chondroitin in each treat. Glucosamine and chondroitin are nutritional components of the cartilage, or the tissue cushioning the joints. While both these substances are produced naturally, dogs with joint problems need more of this nutrition.
- Egg shell membrane. This ingredient is also used to support joint wellness.
- Beef plus nutrient-rich turmeric, cherries, and sesame seeds.
The treats do not contain any corn, which can upset digestion, wheat, or soy, nor do they include any artificial flavors or colors. You can by these tasty dog treats for about $18.99. While most reviewers were well-pleased with the product, one customer, who bought the treats, complained that they were too dry and hard, expecting them to be softer and chewier. Learn more about this highly rated product here.
Beefeaters Chicken Dog Curl Jerky Treats in 36-ounce Packages
While these doggy treats are the highest priced treats at around $26.98, they also are 5-star rated, and highly praised by customers. By reviewing the ingredients and components in the product, you can see why these treats get the rating they do.
Product Highlights
These smoke-flavored curly-cue treats feature the following benefits:
- The first ingredient is real chicken or meat.
- The treats are high in protein and low in fat.
- They do not contain wheat, soy, or corn.
- The treats only contain three ingredients – the meat, glycerin, and salt.
- No artificial colors or flavors are used in the processing.
Unlike the other two treats, these treats originate in Thailand, and not in the U.S. The amount of crude protein in the product is around 65% while crude fat is about 1%. The moisture content falls at around 16%, and the fiber in the products is approximately 2%. You can get more information here about this popular Amazon product.
Summation
From what people have said and a quick review of the ingredients, the top two products in this listing are the NomNomNom treats and Beefeaters treats. If you want to buy a U.S.-based product at a lower price, go with the NomNomNom dog treats. However, if you are okay with the source of the product and want to buy one with higher reviews, choose the Beefeater treats, which come in a variety of flavors besides chicken.
So, what do you think? Which of the above products do you favor for your special Shiba Inu. Shiba Inus should eat raw food diets, when possible. However, you can also supplement this type of diet with all-meat treats that can be used for dog obedience training purposes.
It is a good idea to get your Shiba Inu to eat treats early, as consuming the treats is part of his socialization and training. Also, you may not be able to make your budget stretch sufficiently to buy raw cuts of meat regularly. That is why it is important to review the natural dog treats and dog foods online that offer a comparable nutritional value to raw food menus and diets.
Make sure your dog’s treats are customized, so he will receive exactly what he needs to support his joint and bone health, geriatric needs, or nutritional requirements as a young or middle-aged dog.
How to Choose Jerky and Snacks for a Weight-Prone Breed
Shibas are the breed that will happily take every treat you offer and never tell you they are full. That makes the buying decision as much about restraint as about the product. Here is the framework we use.
- Ingredient count. The shortest label wins. A single-ingredient jerky (just dehydrated beef, or USDA chicken breast) is easy to trust. Once you get past three or four ingredients, read carefully for added sugar, salt, and glycerin, which show up in cheaper jerky to keep it soft and cheap.
- Named protein and sourcing. Look for a specific meat, not "meat." Country of origin is worth a glance too. Plenty of good treats are made abroad, but you want a brand that is transparent about where the meat comes from and how it is processed.
- Size and breakability. For training, a treat you can snap into pea-sized pieces stretches a single strip across a whole session. A Shiba works just as hard for a crumb as for a whole strip, so smaller is smarter for a breed that gains weight easily.
- Calorie honesty. Treats are food. A common vet guideline is to keep treats to around ten percent of daily calories, with the rest coming from a balanced meal. If you train a lot, cut the dinner portion slightly to make room, or use part of the regular kibble as training rewards.
- Functional add-ons, used carefully. Some jerky and chews fold in joint support like glucosamine and chondroitin. Those can be useful for an older Shiba, but they are a supplement, not a reason to overfeed. If your dog has a real joint issue, let your vet steer the dose rather than a treat bag.
A boarder we had was a classic case. His owner used generous handfuls of jerky as her main training tool and could not understand why he was creeping up in weight despite plenty of walks. The food was fine. The math was not. We kept the same jerky, broke each strip into eighths, and used part of his measured breakfast for training rewards. Same dog, same treats, half the calories, and the weight came back down over a few weeks.
For the bigger picture on keeping a treat-loving Shiba lean, see our guide on how to maintain your Shiba's weight, and for what belongs in the daily bowl behind the treats, read our dog food for a Shiba Inu breakdown.
What We Have Seen With Treats and Training
Across more than 250 Shibas placed since 2019 and a constant flow of boarders, treats are the single most useful and most abused tool in the kit. Used well, a high-value jerky is what makes a stubborn, independent breed decide that listening to you is worth it. Used carelessly, it is the quiet reason a healthy dog turns pudgy.
The pattern we see with new adopters is over-treating out of love. The dog looks cute, the treats work, so the hand keeps reaching into the bag. The fix is never to stop rewarding, because a Shiba that gets nothing to work for simply checks out. The fix is smaller pieces, counted portions, and sometimes swapping in plain kibble for low-stakes reps so the good jerky stays special.
The other pattern is treats as a crutch for training that never becomes reliable. A Shiba will follow a treat anywhere, but that is bribery, not obedience. The dogs that end up genuinely trained are the ones whose owners fade the treat over time, rewarding intermittently once the behavior is solid, so the dog works for you and not just for the food. That transition is where most people get stuck, and where a certified trainer earns their fee.
What has worked: keeping one high-value treat reserved strictly for hard asks, using measured kibble for easy ones, and never free-handing snacks off the counter. When we board a dog, treats come from its own supply on its own schedule so nothing throws off the routine. If you want structured help teaching a food-motivated Shiba to actually listen, our one-on-one training builds a plan around your dog's specific motivators.
Common Followup Questions
How many jerky treats can I give my Shiba a day?
There is no fixed number, because it depends on the size of the pieces and your dog's daily calorie needs, but a good rule is to keep all treats combined to roughly ten percent of daily calories. For most Shibas that is a small handful of pea-sized pieces, not whole strips. If you train a lot, break treats smaller and trim the dinner portion slightly so the total stays in check. When in doubt, ask your vet for a calorie target.
Is beef jerky safe for dogs?
Plain, single-ingredient dog jerky made from a named meat is safe and useful. Human beef jerky is a different story: it is often loaded with salt, sugar, garlic, and onion powder, and garlic and onion are toxic to dogs. Stick to jerky made for dogs, read the label for added salt and sugar, and avoid anything with a long list of ingredients you do not recognize.
Are dehydrated meat treats better than biscuits?
For a weight-prone, protein-loving breed like the Shiba, single-ingredient dehydrated meat is usually a cleaner choice than grain-based biscuits, which can carry more filler and sugar. That said, the best treat is the one that fits your dog's calorie budget and does not upset its stomach. Match the treat to the training job, keep pieces small, and count them as part of the day's food no matter which type you pick.
What to Read Next
To keep a treat-loving Shiba at a healthy weight, read how to maintain your Shiba's weight, and for the best rewards to use in training specifically, see our roundup of the best treats for Shiba Inus. If you want to understand what belongs in the daily diet behind the snacks, our dog food for a Shiba Inu guide covers it. And if your Shiba only listens when food is on the table, our one-on-one training can help fix that.
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