Poisonous Food For Dogs

[palehorse]

Foods that can harm your dog
Here is a list and some talk about things you should never feed your dog. be aware that possibly there are some foods not in this list, it is not all inclusive. If you know of any hazardous foods not listed here, please post them.

Giving your dog a treat, something from your own dinner table, is an act of love and giving that we all have done at one point or another. This is actually a bad practice. Not only does it lead to begging, there are also many foods that are toxic to dogs. (I will cover cats later)

For example, chocolate, garlic and onions are just fine for people but can be fatal in large enough amounts, to dogs.

Chocolate
Chocolate is well know for being harmful to dogs. The reason is because it contains a compound known as "theobromine" This is a diuretic and cardiac (heart) stimulant.

When a dog overdoses on chocolate, it becomes excited and hyperactive. Since it is a diuretic, it will make it urinate abnormally, possibly dehydrate, and also cause the dog to drink water excessively. The dog can develop diarrhea and may start vomiting. Chocolate also interferes with the heart. It will make the dogs heart beat irregularly, rapidly, and while doing something energetic may even cause cardiac arrest (heart attack).

Even though after initially feeding the dog chocolate it may seem fine, but in fact it will not be. The effects are not instant, leading you to believe the cause of the illness was something else. It may take several hours to see the effects, and it is possible the dog will die within 24 hours.

Chocolate that you cook with, chocolate like cocoa and baking chocolate are the most harmful. These types of chocolate are concentrated, and contain up to 10 times the harmful properties of, for example, a snickers bar.

Garlic and Onions
These are dangerous because of a toxic ingredient known as "thiosulphate". Onions contain more of it then garlic, so onions are more serious, but garlic is not good either.

Dogs given too much onion or garlic develop what is known as "haemolytic anemia", this means the dog's red blood cells actually "burst".

The symptoms the dog displays start with gas, vomiting and diarrhea. They will loose interest in food and will become lethargic. Their urine will show traces of blood in it, and the dog will have trouble catching it's breath.

This part is important, it can take several days for the dog to show signs of illness. This will lead you to believe the illness and the food are unrelated.

All forms of onion or garlic, cooked or raw, contains the dangerous ingredient. Table scraps, pizza, subs, steak that's been cooked in it all carry these properties. Don't do it!

Macadamia nuts
Either raw or cooked, these are bad because they cause your dog to have trouble moving, walking etc. They will develop tremors and can even become paralyzed from eating too much! As little as 5 nuts are enough in some dogs to do it in. If the dog survives, it recovers fairly fast with no lasting side effects (if it was a low amount).

Those are the top three foods bad for your dog, but there are more.

More Foods To Avoid
Here is a brief list, disregard the order they are listed, all are potentially harmful to your dog.

• Cigarettes, tobacco, cigars or any tobacco product.
• Grapes and raisins, plums and prunes
• large amounts of broccoli
• Rhubarb
• Mold including moldy bread
• potato peels and green potatoes
• Pits of fruits, any fruit pit
• coffee grounds - or ANY caffinated drink including Coke, pepsi, Tea etc etc
• Booze of any kind even beer
• Yeast and yeasted dough
• Hops
• Tomato leaves, or any green part of the tomato

This list is NOT all inclusive. Going by this though, it is very easy to see that you should keep your dog out of garbage.

[palehorse]

Also check out the top five common illnesses in case your dog's problems are not food related.

[lovemygirls]

Thankyou so much for the extremely helpful information on toxic items and foods for dogs. I'll be waiting for your edition on cats. I also have two cats, although we don't give them people food, it is very good to know what to make sure they stay away from... lovemygirls

[dallas13]

Thanks for posting the foods dangerous to dogs, I didn't realize there were so many foods that could harm them.

[dogwatcher]

There is also Grapes and Rasins and caffinated drink that are toxic to dogs.

[palehorse]

Originally Posted by dogwatcher

There is also Grapes and Rasins and caffinated drink that are toxic to dogs.

Thanks, but those are in the list on the original post...

[Robink]

SALMON IS DEADLY TO DOGS and should be on the list. I'm still pretty sure it's what killed our Chancy.

What amazes me reading this list is that people even think of feeding their dogs people-food, including stuff that isn't even good for us! I realize this list is also a warning to keep these things out of reach but I used to have a friend who insisted on giving my dogs "treats" from the table. She would tell her little girls to do it behind my back because I was mean. Did I mention I "used to have a friend?"

I posted earlier about our schnauzer and lipid fat issues. Sometimes dogs can react to foods that don't bother other dogs. We know a border collie who had an epileptic seizure after getting hold of some ham. Since they are prone to epilepsy we figured it was a coincidence. But when she was given ham another time, she had another fit. A serious one where she snarled and snapped at her owners and raced around the house barking and growling! Very scary, but she has not had a fit since they kept her away from ham.

PS to our host: I didn't see coffee on the list other than grounds. Other caffeinated drinks would include coke and pepsi. I'd humbly suggest that you put that last list in BOLD so people can see that it isn't connected to the info about nuts. Just a suggestion! I appreciate the list too, thank you.

[palehorse]

Originally Posted by Robink

PS to our host: I didn't see coffee on the list other than grounds. Other caffeinated drinks would include coke and pepsi. I'd humbly suggest that you put that last list in BOLD so people can see that it isn't connected to the info about nuts. Just a suggestion! I appreciate the list too, thank you.

Thank you, I will add it. As I said in the original post, the list it is not "all inclusive".

[Whizzy]

Well, I hate to disagree, but salmon is NOT deadly to dogs. There can be a problem with raw fresh salmon...it can contain a parasite that will make your dog quite ill. But if it's cooked, or if has been frozen to 0 degrees for a couple of days, it's fine.

Mushers often feed their dogs frozen salmon when they're out on a run. Some of the newer kibbled food for dogs with sensitive digestive tracts or food allergies are salmon based. I feed my own dogs salmon and herring based foods, and have done for the last 4 years. They're all fine.

[ABsMyGirl]

Hi all,
I am not going to jump on the "people food is bad" band wagon, due to the simple fact that, if you ask the older folks what they fed their dogs in the depression and post depression, they said whatever we had.
Now of course back then you couldnt go to the store and buy fed for pets and the lifetime of the pets was astounding.

At the same time many people think it is cute to see their dog catch a grape in the air, not knowing they have just given them ssomething that WILL result in kidney failure. I have heard so many people say "whay could it hurt?", well for those who found out the hard way, it hurts alol and it seems like it will hurt forever.

Now one of ours is an old Gal that has a thyroid issue, she is diabetic and in the next 2 weeks we will know if she also has bladder cancer.

We are very careful about what the kids eat.

We have also had the horrible adventure of beleiving that big name brand dog food is best. When we found out that the quality of the ingredients they start with WE could NOT eat????????

So the end result, they eat mostly dog food, very high end dog food, and that combined with a canine dietician for those with issues, and we beleive we are doing our very best. They deserve nothing less, in my opinion.

Take Care,
Di