Dog Health Food – What Is Safe And What’s Dangerous For Your Best Friend
Most of us tend to assume that any of our food is alright for our dogs too, but dog health food can be a completely different story. Some foods that we eat everyday can be deadly to dogs in very small amounts, so it’s important to know what’s safe and what to avoid.
This boils down to the individual dog and their physiological makeup. Just because you know of another dog that ate macadamias and was fine, doesn’t mean that it’s safe for your little pooch!
Here’s a list of the really nasty ones that all dogs need to avoid:
Chocolate
Most of us know about this one these days, and it really is amazing how little chocolate can be deadly for dogs. Dark and cooking chocolate are the most dangerous with milk chocolate not as bad. But at the end of the day, make sure your dog just doesn’t get chocolate, unless it’s specific dog chocolate which doesn’t have theobromine (the nasty chemical in chocolate)
Onions
These damage red blood cells causing anaemia. One big serving or regular small ones can both be harmful for a dog. Cooked onions are safer, but still not a good idea at all. Thankfully, dogs don’t seek onions out like they do with chocolate, but if they are getting food scraps, make sure that there isn’t any onion in it, cooked or not.
Macadamia Nuts
Can cause muscle weakness and paralysis, usually short lasting thankfully. Just about all other nuts should be avoided because there’s too much phosphorous for a dog to handle. Peanuts are alright because they’re quite different to other nuts.
Tea And Coffee (especially coffee grounds)
Both have a similar effect to chocolate, but often dogs don’t eat them of their own accord, so it’s not such a problem. But it’s still important to make sure that your dog doesn’t get into compost that has coffee in it.
Raisons or grapes
Can cause kidney failure in even fairly small amounts, so make sure that you don’t let them too close to these either.
Taking note of this list could easily save your dog from an early and painful death, just by being a little bit more aware of dog health food is. A lot of the other foods that are only potentially harmful, need to be given in large amounts to be harmful. Hopefully this will clear up any confusion and help your dog to stay healthy.
