Goat Sausage (with quinoa and mint)

You find a treat your dog will actually work for. Two days later they're off their food, and you're back to guessing which one caused it. Anyone with a sensitive-stomach dog knows that loop, and plenty of people quit using treats altogether — right at the point where training needs them most.

Paul & Paulina began in 2003 for the same reason. Désirée Schmidt and Bernhard Meyer had a Golden Retriever named Paula who lived with allergies and struggled with her weight, and a cat named Paul whose immune system never fully came back after chronic cat flu. Nothing on the shelf suited either of them, so the two of them started making the food themselves. The brand carries both their pets' names.

Goat is the part that matters. Most dogs in Hong Kong grow up on chicken, beef and lamb, so by the time a sensitivity shows itself, those three proteins already have years of exposure behind them. Goat is unfamiliar ground for the immune system — less that it has already learned to react to. And what's in the sausage is real food: fine muscle meat, heart, lung and tripe, bound together with quinoa and mint.

The texture does the other half of the job. This sausage is cut-resistant, which means it slices instead of crumbling. One stick becomes a pouch full of training-sized pieces that keep their shape rather than turning to paste on a humid afternoon. At 8.1% fat it stays light enough to run a full session without ruining your dog's appetite for dinner.

It's made in Bavaria, with meat from suppliers close to the workshop. The ingredient list is goat, quinoa and mint, with no dyes, no attractants, no artificial flavourings and nothing added to preserve it. Reading the label takes about five seconds, which is rather the point.

• Goat as a novel protein — an unfamiliar meat for most dogs, so there is less for a reactive immune system to recognise
• Muscle meat, heart, lung and tripe — whole cuts and organ meat rather than rendered meal or by-product powder
• Cut-resistant sausage — slices into clean training pieces that survive a treat pouch instead of crumbling into it
• 8.1% crude fat — low enough to work through a full training session without overloading a dog on a weight plan
• Quinoa and mint as the binder — holds the sausage together without cheap grain filler
• No dyes, attractants, artificial flavourings or preservatives — nothing in it that needs explaining

The 100g is where to begin if your dog's stomach has caught you out before. It's enough for a couple of weeks of short sessions, and small enough that you aren't left holding a big pack if goat turns out not to suit them. The 200g is the refill — for the point where it's clearly working and you're reaching for it three or four times a week.

Start small, then size up once you know.

Shop the Paul&Paulina Goat Sausage with Quinoa and Mint now at Petizen HK.