It is surprising how little we know when it comes to what our dog can and cannot eat. That is why it’s important to read up on the following. It may just save your pooch’s life!
Dr. Jason Nicholas of The Preventive Vet in Portland, OR, may be making headway since he said that his recent blog post about the issue has attracted nearly 500,000 visitors.
“My biggest concern with this and what prompted me to write this article is that awareness is crucial,” he said.
Most dogs like peanut butter and seem to enjoy licking it off a spoon or trying to get it out of a rubber toy. However, xylitol is extremely toxic to them, Nicholas said, and there are no warning labels on the products alerting pet owners about the problem or telling them how much xylitol the product contains.
The nut butter products using xylitol for sweetening are not like regular peanut butter but are actually high-protein nut butter spreads with added whey protein isolate and flax seeds, chia seeds and other ingredients. They include P28 peanut spread from a company in Syracuse, NY, Nuts ‘N More from Providence, RI, and Krush Nutrition’s Nutty by Nature brand from Wellington, FL.
“The thing with all of these is that they seem oriented toward the nutrition, health food, muscle-building crowd,” Nicholas said.
It takes very little xylitol to create serious problems for a dog. Ingestion causes a massive surge of insulin release much more than from the same amount of sugar, he said.
“That surge of insulin drops blood sugar and causes hypoglycemia and, as a result of hypoglycemia, there’s not enough glucose in the blood and it causes weakness, ataxia (like staggering or drunk walking), and can cause collapse and, because the brain isn’t able to get the energy it needs, it can cause seizure and coma,” the vet said.
Basically it all comes down to a rapid drop in a dog’s blood sugar or hypoglycemia. Common indications of this happening are a pup that starts to wobble when he walks, weakness and disorientation.
To read more on this interesting and deeply concerning topic, please go to Food Safety News. It gives great advice, including the reading of labels.
Again, it does not hurt to give your pup an occasional peanut butter treat but, by all means, stay away from products with xylitol!
