Thanksgiving and Christmas are joyful holidays full of family, friends, celebrations, and feast. It is easy to be caught up in the moment of sharing and share some of the delicious foods with out furry friends. However, not all holiday foods are safe for our pets and can even have some serious repercussions. Sometimes tough love is the best when it comes to sharing our food with our pets. The following list of common holiday foods are dangerous to our furry friends : turkey bones, chicken bones, mashed potatoes, stuffing, casseroles, nuts, cookies, pie, cakes, onions, mushrooms, ham, grapes, raisins, yeast dough, alcohol, and chocolate.
Dangerous Food Breakdown
-
Turkey Bones and Chicken Bones: Dogs and Cats love to check on things. It may seem like a harmless treat to give them a turkey or chicken bone, but the repercussion can be life threatening. The bone can become lodged in their digestive tract causing blockage or lacerations. Some things to look for would be vomiting, diarrhea and lethargy. If think you there maybe a possibility your canine or feline ate a bone and are experiencing these symptoms, please take them to vet immediately as this can become life threatening.
-
Mashed Potatoes: Cooked Skinned Potatoes can be harmless to canines. However, the seasoning we use in mashed potatoes like garlic and onions are very dangerous to your pets. Garlic and Onions can cause life-threatening complications. Potatoes, even if they are unseasoned and cooked should not be feed to diabetic canines as they can cause a surge in blood sugar levels.
-
Stuffing and Casseroles : The season we use to make our famous family stuffing and casseroles are dangerous to your furry friends. Not only can they cause vomiting and diarrhea, but can also cause other serious complications.
-
Nuts: Different nuts are commonly used is pies, cookies, stuffing, casseroles and snacks. However, before you toss your pet a macadamia nut cookie or a handful of nuts from a bowel, remember nuts can have some serious side effects like vomiting, tremors, in ability to stand, and even in some cases seizures.
-
Cookies, Pies and Cakes : We all love these delightful treats and your little ones may want to share their dessert with their pets, however, these sweets are usually high in sugar and can have other harmful seasoning. Stay away from pies like pecan pie and mince meat pie. Pecan pie is high in sugar and contains nuts. Mince meat pie contains toxic ingredients onions and garlic.
-
Onions, scallions and garlic: These are in most of our favorite holiday dishes. We may find them delicious additions to our food, but for pets it can cause some serious even life-threatening complications. It may even take a few days to weeks for symptoms to appear. It can cause the break down of your pets red blood cells leading to anemia and possible blood transfusions.
-
Mushrooms: Mushrooms are wonderful in stuffing and casseroles, however, they are toxic to our pets. Please refrain from sharing dishes that contain mushrooms.
-
Ham: Ham and pork products can cause pancreatitis, vomiting and diarrhea.
-
Grapes and Raisins: Grapes and raisins are extremely toxic to canines and felines. It only takes one or two grapes to be fatal to smaller canines such as Chihuahuas.
-
Yeast Dough: Yeast dough can cause bloating, which can cause twisting of the stomach and other life-threatening complications. It can even cause alcohol poisoning. Yeast dough, if ingested by your canine or feline would continue to expand in their stomach causing a distended stomach. If your canine or feline seem to have a distended stomach, please see your veterinarian immediately.
-
Alcohol: All alcoholic adult are dangerous to your pets. It can cause alcohol poisoning, vomiting, collapsing, difficulty breathing, tremors, and poor appetite.
-
Chocolate: Chocolate contains substances called methylxanthines, which when ingested by canines can cause vomiting and diarrhea, panting, excessive thirst and urination, hyperactivity, abnormal heart rhythm, tremors, seizures and even death. The darker the chocolate the more dangerous it is to your pet. Please keep all chocolate brownies, puddings, fudge and cakes out of reach of curious pets.
We are wishing everyone a safe and healthy holiday seasons. It may be tempting to feed your pets holiday treats but please refrain from giving them something that could result in an emergency veterinarian visit.