Doggie Danger

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

Apparently, I’ve been (slightly) poisoning our beloved Buzz, The Garbage Disposal Who Walks Like A Dog.

In a recent column at the Huffington Post, I read about 12 human foods that were dangerous to feed to your dog. While I knew several of them, I was completely gobsmacked by a lot of the items on the list.

I thought I’d share them with you dog-loving dudes out there who might have been as ignorant about this as was I. Although, to be fair, several of these are new additions to the list.

It’s pretty well-known that dogs can’t abide chocolate and the darker the chocolate, the more the danger. That’s because chocolate contains  caffeine and theobromine, known as methylxanthines. Dogs eating this can experience dehydration, vomiting, diarrhea and possibly death. So, no chocolate treats.

Milk and cheese also make the list because they have properties that dog digestive systems can’t break down. These can lead to some pretty nasty consequences, one of which is bad gas. Now, if you’ve ever owned a dog, you know doggy poots are toxic even at the best of times. Knowing that cheese and milk can make mammals poot up a storm, we’ve been keeping these away from Buzz, The Garbage Disposal That Walks Like A Dog, just to be safe.

Onions and garlic both make the list for the damage they can do to the dog’s blood cells, leading to either death or a necessary blood transfusion to mitigate the damage. The dogs’ reaction to these foods can take a couple of days to show up, but include dark-red urine and extreme lethargy.

We don’t know what it is about macadamia nuts that hurts dogs, but it certainly is dangerous. Eating them can lead to hypothermia, vomiting, staggering and tremors.

The first big surprise on the list, for me, is grapes. Our dog loves grapes, loves to catch them and then eat them. So now that’s right out the window because I don’t want our cutie pie suffering from extreme and rapid kidney failure because he ate grapes or raisins.

Now, I sort of assumed that an avocado pit would be bad for a dog because it could block up all sorts of tubes. What I didn’t know was that the flesh of the avocado, which contains a toxin called persin, also was dangerous to canines . Eating guac can cause upset stomachs, fluid buildup in the chest and difficulty breathing.

I’d hoped I could get through this in only one post, but it’s not looking likely. So I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest of the list.

Until then, why not just give Fido food and snacks that actually are intended to be eaten by dogs. Keep the human food to humans. And those reptiloids masquerading as humans, of course.

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