If You Are Going to Share Thanksgiving Dinner With Your Pooch, Keep These Away
Thanksgiving has rolled around again, and you’re feeling grateful, generous, and much more kindly towards your fellow human beings. However, you should be careful about how much care you should towards your non-human friends, especially your pet dog.
While it’s customary to feed your dogs scraps from the Thanksgiving table, there are certain items there that could prove harmful or even fatal to them. If not the whole food item, then a certain ingredient might cause your holiday to end in worry or tragedy.
TURKEY BONES
When your dog eats the turkey remains, or any pieces of turkey which could have bones in it, they run a huge risk. Cooked bones of any bird are brittle and likely to splinter, especially if the dog chews them while eating.
These splinter bones could scratch up the throat or pose a choking hazard, cutting off the dog’s oxygen supply. If they do go down, the sharp bits could possibly puncture the digestive tract or the stomach itself. Even passing the bones could become a painful endeavor.
UNDERCOOKED TURKEY AND SKIN
Another food item you should keep away from your dog on Thanksgiving is anything undercooked. You might be tempted to give them the bits you can’t eat yourself, but this is very dangerous for your pet. If ingested, undercooked meat could cause salmonella for the animal.
The same goes for the skin, because you don’t know how the seasoning has been done. The turkey might have been basted with onion, garlic, sage, etc, which aren’t good for cats or dogs.
GRAVY AND STUFFING
The main ingredients of most gravies and stuffing include onions, mushrooms, scallions, chives, pepper, etc. Again, most of them are harmful to pets, especially dogs. You shouldn’t even think about letting your dog lick some gravy off the floor or give them any meat with gravy or stuffing on it.
CRANBERRY SAUCE
This canned condiment is a staple at any Thanksgiving table, but it can be downright harmful for your dog. While cranberries themselves are suitable for canines and even helpful for their UTIs, the sauce version throws out a lot of those vitamins and nutrient.
Canned sauces, in particular, have a large amount of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Even if you’re making the sauce at home, notice that a lot of sugar goes into the recipe. There are also ingredients like nuts, raisins, and preservatives that simply aren’t good for large or small dogs.
DOUGH AND BATTER
When you’re preparing your Thanksgiving dinner, you may have a lot of raw bread dough and raw cake batter on hand. Before throwing some to your dog, remember what happens to the batter and dough when they’re in the oven. They’re going to swell up just like that when in your dog’s stomach.
This could result in abdominal bloating, vomiting, and a lot of pain for your dog. Plus, the raw eggs in the cake batter could contain salmonella, resulting in a very serious condition. You should hence keep that stuff away from the dog and from yourself as well.
MASHED POTATOES
This is another well-loved addition to the Thanksgiving table, but it shouldn’t be dealt out to the dog. While potatoes are fine when consumed by dogs in moderation, the ingredients in mashed potatoes are not so great for them.
Many dogs are actually lactose intolerant, so the milk, butter, and cheese in mashed potatoes would likely not agree with them (let them nibble on dog cheese instead). This could result in an upset stomach, diarrhea, or even vomiting. The flavorings are also something to watch out for, as they could include garlic, onion, or something similar.
CONCLUSION
We all want our pets around and taking part in the fun of Thanksgiving. The best way to ensure that they do this in a safe manner is to keep them away from the meal part of the occasion. Some may think of this as the whole point of Thanksgiving, but you can always make the dog a separate, safe meal. This way, they’ll be satisfied and no one would feel sorry for them when it’s dinner time. Later on, they can be part of the Thanksgiving games and family photo!