What to Feed your Pets – and What to Avoid!

What to Feed Your Pets – and What to Avoid!

Our pets, particularly dogs and cats, are very curious by nature – they can end up eating all sorts of foods! As any dog or cat owner knows, they’re also very good at begging for a taste of whatever we have on our plates or happen to be cooking. However, as hard as it is to say no, not everything that’s good for us is good for our four-legged friends. In fact, sometimes food that is perfectly fit for human consumption can be toxic for pets, having far-reaching and even deadly effects on their health. For your and Fido’s own good, it’s important to know the dos and don’ts of what to feed your pets!

Foods to Avoid

If you’re wondering what foods are definite no-goes for your pets, this list will leave you well-informed to make better choices about your pet’s diet.

Chocolate

Every dog owner will have heard of this before – but can it be true? Is chocolate truly dangerous for dogs?

The unfortunate answer is yes. But it largely depends on the size of your dog, and the amount and strength of chocolate consumed.

This is because pure, dark chocolate contains a theobromine, a component that is toxic to them. Although humans can easily digest theobromine, dogs process it much more slowly. The more that ends up in their system, the closer the levels get to a toxic level and can cause damage.

In this respect, if a big dog ingests some light milk chocolate, it won’t be as bad as a chihuahua eating 5 bars of 80% dark chocolate. Remember that cocoa, cooking chocolate and dark chocolate all contain the highest levels of theobromine, whereas milk and white chocolate have the lowest. To give you an idea, just 25 grams of dark chocolate are enough to poison a 20kg dog!

A small amount of chocolate may give your dog a bad stomach – or it may do nothing at all. Large amounts can produce serious health problems, like seizures, irregular heartbeats, internal bleeding or heart attacks. The onset of theobromine poisoning is usually shown by severe hyperactivity.

The best way to deal with this is to take your pooch to the vet, who will induce vomiting.

Onions

Did you know that onions are actually incredibly poisonous for dogs and cats? They contain a compound called disulphides and thiosulphates. The ingestion of these toxins can cause a condition called haemolytic anaemia – basically, they damage the red blood cells in your pets, and can cause these red blood cells circulating the anima’s body to become very fragile and eventually burst.

Signs that this is happening to your pet include vomiting, diarrhoea, anaemia (breathlessness, lethargy, pale gums, an elevated heart rate) and abdominal pain and discoloured urine. It can take several days to a week after your pet eats onions for these symptoms to appear.

All onions, whether they are raw, cooked, or dried are a danger to pets. It only takes a very small of onions to poison your cat or dog – cats are actually more sensitive than dogs. Consuming as little as 5g of onions in cats, or 15-30g in dogs has resulted in red blood cell damage. For all animals, a general rule is that by ingesting 0.5% of their body weight in onions can result in onion toxicosis.

For this reason, it’s important to stay vigilant – onions are found in almost everything we humans eat! Watch out for your pet eating pizza, tomato sauces, Chinese takeaways and baby foods especially. Other foods contain onion powder in various amounts. Although it does take a certain amount of onion to cause a problem, it can be hard to know how much is in a food, especially if you are feeding your dog scraps. It can be tricky to determine what has caused a toxic reaction in pets if they have been eating table scraps – so always be sure of what you’re feeding your pets!

Garlic

Garlic can also be toxic for pets. Although it is considered a holistic remedy in the prevention of heart disease, high blood pressure and warding off fleas, it is not effective when ingested by pets. This is because garlic is one of the Allium family – it contains compounds called disulphides and thiosulphates, like onions, shallots, leeks and chives, which can again cause Heinz body anaemia, haemolytic anaemia, and methemoglobinemia which are all conditions of damage to the red blood cells.

From a toxicity perspective, garlic is a lot more toxic than onions – 5 times more concentrated, smaller amounts of garlic can cause toxicosis in pets. Even just one clove of garlic can cause toxicity in pets! The symptoms of garlic poisoning are the same as that of onion toxicosis – vomiting, diarrhoea, anema (breathlessness, lethargy, yellow gums, elevated heart rate), abdominal pain and discoloured urine.

Keep foods that contain garlic, and garlic pills, well out of reach of pets!

Raw Meat and Fish and Eggs

Pets, a lot like humans, can become sick with food poisoning if they eat raw meat and fish and eggs. These foods can contain bacteria that leads to salmonella, and certain types of fish like salmon, trout, shad or sturgeon can cause ‘fish disease’. This can be fatal within 2 weeks and the first signs are vomiting, fever and big lymph nodes.

Raw eggs, meanwhile, can contain Salmonella or E. coli. Excessive consumption of raw eggs can also result in biotin deficiency, which can cause skin problems. Feeding your pets cooked eggs is a much safer bet!

Products Containing Xylitol

Xylitol is a sugar substitute and comes in everything from toothpaste to chewing gum. It can also be found in cough medicines and chewable multi-vitamins, baked goods and candies. It’s okay for diabetics to use, and humans following a low carbohydrate diet. When pets eat it, however, it’s disastrous.

Xylitol causes the rapid release of insulin in pets, resulting in hypoglycaemia. This leads to vomiting, weakness, and seizures. It can result, at worst, in liver failure. As little as one stick of gum containing xylitol can be toxic to a small, 20-pound dog.

Wild Mushrooms

Mushrooms are notoriously hard to identify – an innocent looking mushroom can actually be a poisonous type, and even experts have died from eating the wrong mushroom (you might recall the author of the Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans, was nearly killed by eating a mushroom he thought was an edible cep, and turned out to be a webcap!). Identifying mushrooms is a process, involving the family, genius and species. Mushroom experts examine mushrooms carefully, and compare spore impressions, gills and fine hairs on the surface of the mushroom’s body. It is very easy to get it wrong, and this is why you – and your pets! – should never eat wild mushrooms.

The worst offenders are: Fly Agaric, Jewelled Death Cap, Death Cap, Elf’s Saddle, and the Autumn Galerina.

Like humans, pets who eat toxic mushrooms will experience kidney and liver failure, vomiting, and dehydration. The complications can be life-long and may result in your pooch being on doggy dialysis. Something you surely want to avoid!

Rhubarb

Rhubarb is actually highly toxic for pets and should be removed if it’s growing on your property. The leaves and stalks smell sweet, so your dog or cat may chew on them – but rhubarb contains oxalate crystals, which can cause kidney and liver failure. It’s considered one of the most toxic plants out there, so be sure to remove it!

Eggplant / Aubergine

Believe it or not, eggplant or aubergine also contains high levels of oxalate. If high levels are ingested by dogs or cats, it can result in kidney failure. If pets are already suffering from kidney issues, foods containing oxalate should be avoided like the plague.

Nutmeg

Unbeknownst to you, you have a drug capable of abuse in your spice cabinet – nutmeg.

Nutmeg is known to us all as a Christmas flavour for sweet and savoury dishes, made from the hard seed of the Myristica fragrans tree.

When ingested in high quantities, nutmeg can actually get you high – by poisoning you. The same goes for your pets! This is because nutmeg contain myristicin. While a small amount won’t do very much, large amounts can cause hallucinations, disorientation, elevated heart rates, dry mouth, abdominal pain and seizures. These can last for 48 hours! So, don’t go feeding your pets spoon fulls of nutmeg (although we’re not very sure why you’d do that, anyway!).

Aloe Vera

There is a case that the sap of the aloe vera plant can be poisonous for pets, but again, they’d have to eat a lot of it and specifically the part of the plant that contains toxins. This is the Aloe Vera latex, and can cause cramping, diarrhoea, nausea and dehydration.

If aloe vera gel or drops are ingested, they are laxatives so can cause a lot of bowel movements in pets. This can be dangerous, as dehydration can kill, so you should seek a vet’s help immediately.

Avocado

Last but not least – don’t let your pets eat avocados! This is mainly due to the great big stone in the middle, which has been known to choke pets to the point they have to have it surgically removed (that’s a big vet bill!).

However, there is also evidence that the compound persin, found in avocados, is a toxic. It’s mainly found in the leaves of the avocado tree, but there is a small amount in the soft edible fruit. It’s most often poisonous if livestock ingest the leaves of the plant – but is not highly toxic to dogs and cats.

Pet birds, however, can become ill if they eat avocados. Canaries, parakeets, cockatiels and budgies can all be poisoned by as little as 1 gram of avocado. The symptoms of poisoning include inability to perch, problems breathing, fluid accumulation around a bird’s heart and lungs, and eventually kidney and liver failure. Due to their size, most birds to not survive when they have eaten avocado, so keep it away at all costs!

Macadamia Nuts

Although most nuts are fine for pooches, dogs are extremely allergic to macadamia nuts – for reasons no one is really sure of!

The ingestion of macadamia nuts by dogs is associated with a non-fatal syndrome, characterised by vomiting, lethargy, muscle tremors and diarrhoea. They usually recover on their own, as there is no antidote for this toxin. Dogs are the only species known of that are allergic to macadamia nuts!

Cherries

Did you ever hear that cherry tones contain cyanide? Avoid feeding them to your pets, unless you want them to be very seriously poisoned.

Ok, so now that we’ve looked at the major foods that you should not feed your furry loved one, stay tuned for our next article, in which we will be looking at foods that you Can give your pet…..

Asta luego !

-Eyal Azerad ([email protected])

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