Understanding what you can and can't feed your dog.
Historically dog owners tended to offer their dog leftovers from their meals and most of us are occasionally guilty of doing this. So how do you know which foods your dog can eat and which ones are toxic. Or simply put, which 'human foods are good for dogs?'. Dog's should get the majority of their daily nutrition from their balanced, complete, quality dog food. However, many dogs enjoy occasional treats and providing it is the right sort of treat, this is absolutely fine. In the following article we explore this topic and go through common belief about what you should and should not be feeding your dog.
We've made a quick list of human foods that dogs can eat. This is by no means an all encompassing list but hopefully gives a good idea of what human foods to feed your puppy, which foods you should avoid and which human foods you shouldn't feed your dog.
What Proteins Are Best For Dogs?
Protein is a crucial part of your dog’s diet, just like it is in yours. “We literally can’t survive without it,” says Dr. Gary Richter, author of The Ultimate Pet Health Guide: Breakthrough Nutrition and Integrative Care for Dogs and Cats and veterinarian at Montclair Veterinary Hospital in Oakland, California.
Why Is Protein for Dogs Important?
Proteins are essentially a combination of many amino acids. They play many roles in the body including maintaining muscle, fur, skin and nails; making critical components of the immune system; and forming enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions in cells. Pets are built to make some amino acids themselves. Others (called “essential amino acids”) can only come from the food that they eat.
Protein can also be an important source of energy for pets. Dogs will use protein for energy when more is eaten than is required for its other roles.
Protein Absorption & Digestibility
In terms of absorption and digestibility, eggs and chicken are best sources of protein for dogs (source: https://www.dogfoodinsider.com/dog-food-digestion/). Following closely behind this are meats like beef, lamb and rabbit. Fish is rated at about 75 percent digestibility, then foods like wheat, corn and even soy tend to rank even lower.
With this in mind it is important to ensure that any food that you are feeding your dog is high in a quality protein as protein plays a crucial role in your dog’s diet, just like it is in yours. “literally can’t survive without it,” says Dr. Gary Richter, author of The Ultimate Pet Health Guide: Breakthrough Nutrition and Integrative Care for Dogs and Cats and veterinarian at Montclair Veterinary Hospital in Oakland, California.
In short, for the most part yes, but remember they should never be more than 10% of the food that your dog eats and not a main source of energy. Some fruits and vegetables are great sources of antioxidants and fibre. Sadly many dog food companies these days go all out to try and 'humanise' their food and pack their foods full of things like brocoli, carrots, celery and any other things that we as humans might eat. Whilst not dangerous, these foods aren't necessarily providing that much nutrition for your dog and importantly are taking away the opportunity for higher pet nutrition foods being in your dog's diet.
Here's a short list of vegetables which are safe for dogs to eat, including:
Absolutely not, onions are a big no no for dogs. Raw or cooked, fried or powdered, onions and the rest of the allium family (garlic, shallots, leeks, and chives) are all harmful to dogs. Eating too much onion can damage a dog's red blood cells, causing a condition called Haemolytic Anaemia. If you think your dog may have eaten onions, contact your vet immediately.
It is worth noting if feeding your dog human food, that onion toxicity can often occur having fed your dog leftover ready meals (containing lots of garlic and onions).
High quality human grade chicken, gently cooked with the perfect blend of nutritious and tasty ingredients for the healthiest dog food possible.
Dog's can eat raw meats, but we advise against feeding dog's a raw diet for a couple of reasons. The image above is taken from a recent article in the www.newfoodmagazine.com where a study showed raw foods containing high levels of multidrug-resistant bacteria, including those resistant to last-line antibiotics. For more information click here.
There is a risk of contamination from bacteria that would normally be killed off by the cooking process. These include harmful bacteria such as salmonella, e-coli and even listeria.
The final reason is simply that cooked meats are easier to digest than raw meats. We don't advise kibbles or tinned foods as they cook their food at extremely high temperatures to ensure that the food has a long shelf life, effectively killing off any goodness in the food, but a gentle cooking of any meat will retain the goodness but kill off all the bad bacteria.
We gently cook our food, freeze it immediately after cooking and deliver it frozen fresh to your door.
We've outlined some of the main ingredients required for a complete and healthy diet for dogs. Below is a table showing some of the most harmful human foods for dogs.
Here's a quick list of toxic foods for dogs:
We've touched on these already above.
Macadamia nuts and walnuts contain a toxin that can affect your dog’s muscles and nervous system resulting in weakness, swollen limbs and panting. To be safe, don't feed dogs nuts.
This is a double whammy, dairy isn't great for dogs and then cocoa contains a stimulant called theobromine which is toxic for dogs and can cause kidney failure.
Avo's contain a harmful substance called persin which can cause your dog to have diarrhoea and vomit.
We joke about it with our photos of dogs with champagne glasses on the table in front of them on instagram but alcohol even in small quantities can cause sickness, diarrhoea and even central nervous system damage.
Chewing gum and sugar free products often have artificial sweeteners which help us reduce our intake of glucose but for dogs these sweetened foods can cause damage to their livers and even cause hypoglycaemia.
Unfortunately, grapes and raisins are found in all sorts of cakes and treats, but for dogs they can cause severe liver damage and kidney failure.
The bones themselves are very nutritious and if you can feed your dog a big bone straight from the butcher it is a delicious and nutritious treat. However, cooked bones become brittle and can splinter causing internal bleeding in dogs.
No ingredients you can’t pronounce. Everything a dog needs for a balanced nutritionally complete diet
We use high quality natural ingredients including human grade British farmed chicken. We gently cook the food on our farm at a low temperature and deliver it frozen fresh to your door. This means that all the goodness from the food makes it fresh to your dog's bowl.
Cooking the food is important to ensure that all dangerous bacteria are killed off and importantly cooked food is easier to digest. Unfortunately mass produced kibbles and tinned foods are cooked at very high temperatures and this kills off any good nutrition in the proteins and amino acids in the food.
We use DPD next day delivery service to ensure that the food arrives at your door frozen fresh.
Store the food in the freezer and defrost in the fridge. Each chub has a 5 day 'fridge life' once defrosted.
Absolutely! There are three primary reasons why Pets Love Fresh is better than raw food. Firstly, the ingredients going in to our food are higher quality and better balanced than raw foods. Secondly, gently cooked food is easier to digest for dogs ensuring that they are getting the most nutrition possible from the food. Thirdly, by cooking our food we are killing any dangerous bacteria and pathogens such as listeria or e-coli.
This really depends on your dog's medical condition. We know from our research that our food will help with allergies and intolerances as the high quality single protein source we use is easy to digest and we have used natural ingredients known to aid digestion. If unsure, request your vet to look at our 'FULL NUTRITIONAL INFO' section to see if any of the ingredients may cause a problem for your dog.
