It’s Thanksgiving week in Minnesota, and families will be gathering to celebrate the holiday with tables full of tasty eats.
When it comes to family, many of us include our dogs as part of the tribe. So when we’re enjoying the annual feast, we wondered if sharing turkey with our pups is OK for their health. It seems like it would be fine.
According to the American Kennel Club, the answer is yes — and no.
Turkey is not toxic to dogs, and actually has many health benefits, but a lot of what ends up on our Thanksgiving table — including the turkey made for people, might not be the best choice for our dogs.
The AKC adds…
We rub our birds with butter and oils and season them with salt, pepper, herbs, and spices. We stuff them full of stuffing, onions, garlic, and more herbs. To us, this is delicious. For our dogs, it is a recipe for unpleasant digestive upset at best, and pancreatitis at worst.
AKC: How to Feed Your Dog Turkey Safely
- Skip the skin. All of that fat and seasoning is dangerous for dogs. The fat content can cause pancreatitis, and the seasonings can irritate your dog’s stomach.
- Make sure you only feed your dog turkey meat. Onions are toxic to dogs, and garlic is potentially toxic in large quantities.
- Feed your dog only small quantities of turkey, and talk to your vet about adding food scraps into your dog’s diet, especially if your dog has a preexisting health condition, like diabetes.
- Make sure there are no bones in the meat you feed your dog.
The final word on the subject from the American Kennel Club:
Yes, you can feed your dog turkey safely, as long as you follow these guidelines. However, feeding table scraps to dogs on a regular basis can lead to obesity, which causes a host of problems, including diabetes, hypertension, joint stress, and hip dysplasia.
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To prepare yourself for a potential incident, always keep your vet’s phone number handy, along with an after-hours clinic you can call in an emergency. The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center also has a hotline you can call at (888) 426-4435 for advice.
Even with all of these resources, however, the best cure for food poisoning is preventing it in the first place. To give you an idea of what human foods can be dangerous, Stacker has put together a slideshow of 30 common foods to avoid. Take a look to see if there are any that surprise you.
Gallery Credit: Rachel Cavanaugh
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