Foods Dogs Should Not Eat

1 Salt

Salt throws off a dog’s fluid and electrolyte balance, so keep it away from your dog.

2 Pungent Spices

Black pepper and similar spices irritate the gut and trigger diarrhea or vomiting.

3 Large Stone Fruits

Peaches, plums, apricots and the like should never be given whole — the pit can cause a blockage. Pit them first if you want to share.

4 Liver

People warn that liver causes vitamin A toxicity, but dose is everything. The toxic threshold in studies is over 57,000 IU per kg of body weight, eaten daily for at least a month. Take a Husky: it would need about five kilograms of chicken liver a day for a month to be at risk, so normal feeding never reaches toxicity.

5 Bones

Never feed cooked bones — cooking makes them hard and sharp, a real hazard to the stomach and intestines.

Choose larger beef or lamb bones that won’t snap, and they come with nutritious marrow.

Whether a dog bolts its food or chews slowly matters: a slow chewer is fine to gnaw, but a gulper should have bones taken away once it’s had enough.

6 Capsicum (Peppers)

Peppers are actually beneficial — rich in vitamins A and C, with antioxidant, antibacterial, and metabolism-boosting effects.

If you cook for your dog, pick mild peppers like bell peppers.

Keep peppers under 10% of the meal.

7 Dairy

Many dogs lose lactase after weaning and can’t handle the lactose in milk, so too much causes diarrhea.

Dairy also tends to trigger allergies; milk protein is hard for dogs to digest.

So go by the individual dog. If yours tolerates dairy, keep it; cheese and yogurt are fine — choose low-fat.