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Beggin' Strips is a brand of dog treats manufactured and sold in North America by Nestlé's Nestlé Purina PetCare division. Beggin' Strips are designed to resemble strips of bacon.

History

Beggin’ Strips were first sold in 1993. Nestle Purina started off by selling this product in North America. Coupons for the product were released shortly after to try to build support for the treats. With Beggin’ Strips being one Nestle Purina’s top brands, the company made $12.5 million in sales during the year of 2010. Beggin’ Strips are widely known by their television commercial, which first aired in 1994. The trademark bag for the product also makes Beggin’ Strips easily recognizable among consumers. The bag features a cartoon dog licking his chops while awaiting a treat. Drawn up in 1994, the dog was named "Hamlet." Hamlet was chosen to appear in Nestle Purina's advertising for Beggin' Strips, and to represent the product. While Beggin’ Strips are not nutritionally benefical to your pets, throughout history the product has been praised as “more healthy than table scraps.” This is supported by Nestle Purina Petcare, who offers various coupons and other savings for Beggin’ Strips.

Nutrition

Purina Beggin' Strips are made of real bacon but are enhanced with artificial ingredients. According to Purina's Beggin' Strip website the initial bacon is preserved with sodium nitrite and BHA. Base ingredients for additional additives include ground wheat, corn gluten meal, wheat flour, ground yellow corn, water, sugar, glycerin, soybean meal hydrogenated starch hydrolysate, meat phosphoric acid, sorbic acid, natural and artificial smoke flavors. Depending on the flavor, artificial coloring is also added. There are six flavors and according to the Dickinson-McNeill Veterinary Clinic of New Jersey and the Seaside Animal Clinic of North Carolina, each treat is about 30 calories. A brand designed for smaller pets, the Beggin' Little's, are about 6-8 calories. Calories of dog biscuits, chew bones, and bacon bites sold from other competitive companies sometimes soar way past 30 calories. According to the Seaside Animal Clinic of North Carolina, a healthy dog, depending on its size, should eat anywhere between 300 to 1,200 calories. A single 30 calorie treat falls way beneath a proportionate meal size and can be given daily with no long term harm. Contrary to popular belief, dog treats can be healthy when given in ration. A single Beggin' Strip given to a healthy dog daily has proven to actually improve the mood and behavior of the dog.

Marketing

Beggin' Strips are mostly famous for their television advertising, beginning in 1994, after they began selling their product in 1993. Shown from a dog's perspective, the excited pet smells Beggin' Strips and is convinced that he is smelling real bacon, exclaiming, "It's BACON!" The voice of the dog was done by Mississippi University for Women's Professor Eric Harlan. More recently, a new commercial was written and voiced by New York comedian Alex Bloom. The product's catchphrase is "Dogs Don't Know It's Not Bacon!" Today, Purina still hosts their annual Beggin' Pet Parade around the time of Mardi Gras. It is held every year in Soulard, a historic French neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri and might possibly be the world's largest pet parade, hosting over 5,000 pets and their owners. St. Louis's Waterloo Courier also covered the Beggin' Strips Stupid Dog Contest on July 4th, 1999. This contest offers multiple monetary prizes, the grand prize being a $5,000 supply of Beggin' Strips per year and a trip to see the Late Show with David Letterman in New York.