5 Toxic Foods for Pets
While we consider dogs and cats to be the members of the family, feeding them all the foods we eat could cause injury, toxicity, pet obesity, or allergy. It’s especially important to choose the best food for small breed puppies and avoid any human food that may be detrimental to their health. The common symptoms of pet toxicity include vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, drooling, seizure, and even death. So it’s important to know what kinds of foods could be toxic to our cats and dogs. The following are five toxic foods for pets:
1. Onions and garlic
Anything in the family of onions such as garlic, shallot, scallion, and chives, is toxic as well as dangerous to your dog because all these foods contain the compounds that could cause gastroenteritis, anemia, and other serious harm to the red cells of blood in your dog. The signs and symptoms of the poisoning from onion or garlic usually do not occur within several days after the ingestion of food, which could be lethargy, fatigue, and orange to red-tinged urine due to the damage of red blood cells.
2. Chocolate and caffeine
It is a recognized fact that chocolate is toxic to dogs. The type and amount of chocolate that your dog consumes usually determines the toxicity level and symptoms that the dog will suffer. The symptoms could include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, increased thirst, lethargy, muscle tremors, high body temperature, irregular heartbeat, seizures and death. In general, the darker chocolate, the more dangerous it could be to your dog now that it contains the higher concentration of both caffeine and theobromine, which could cause toxicosis to dogs. Also. keep the dog away from any caffeinated beverages as well.
3. Grapes and raisins
Grapes as well as raisins have been associated with the factor causing kidney failure in some dogs. The signs of poisoning from grapes and raisin could occur within 12 hours after the ingestion. The symptoms include vomiting, lethargy and diarrhea. If these symptoms are not treated timely, they could further lead to loss of appetite, dehydration, increased urination and followed by the decreased urination. If these signs occur after your dog consumed grapes or raisins, you should take the dog to a vet immediately; otherwise, your dog could develop a long-term kidney problem, and even die of kidney failure in three to four days.
4. Raw meat and bones
People should not eat raw meat or bone, neither should your pets. Uncooked meat or bone could harbor potentially deadly bacteria, like E. coli and salmonella, and these bacteria could wreak havoc on any digestive system. Although dogs are usually less prone to the infections from the bacteria like these than people are, still these bacteria could make them get sick, such as Hartogensis. The symptoms could include vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, and others.
5. Raw eggs
Raw eggs contain a compound called “Avidin”, usually found in the white of raw egg, and it could create a biotin deficiency, also called vitamin B7 deficiency, in dogs. The common signs and symptoms of biotin deficiency include nhibited fatty acid metabolism, inhibited cell growth, loss of skin, and other more. In addition, there is also the risk of getting bacterial infection from feeding your dog with raw eggs, such as salmonella.