8 Things Your Dogs Should Avoid During Thanksgiving

How can you not love Thanksgiving? An entire holiday solely dedicated to sitting around with family and friends to eat delicious home-cooked food until our pant’s buttons pop!

While we are enjoying the feast, if you’re anything like me I am sure you want to give your dogs a special treat as well. There’s nothing wrong with letting your dog indulge a little bit but you have to be careful and use caution with what you give them.

Here are 8 things that can be very harmful to your dog and you should avoid feeding during Thanksgiving:

1. Turkey Skin – The skin of the turkey holds in any marinade you put on the turkey like butter, spices and oils. These things can be very difficult for your dog to digest. If you want to give your dog turkey, make sure it’s skinless and boneless.

2. Cooked Bones – Cooked turkey or ham bones are extremely dangerous to dogs. They can splinter in your dog’s digestive track and cause a serious medical emergency, or worse. Be sure to dispose of bones completely out of your dog’s reach.

3. Onions & Garlic – These both contains sulfides which are toxic to dogs. Onions are the more toxic of the two and contrary to popular belief, cooking them does not reduce their toxicity.

4. Alcohol – As obvious as this should seem, alcohol is toxic to dogs and can cause death. So please don’t attempt to get your canine drunk this Thanksgiving.

5. Nuts – Specifically walnuts and macadamia nuts are very dangerous to dogs. The can cause what is known as “macadamia nut toxicosis”. Within 12 hours of eating them, dogs are unable to stand, have tremors, fever, weakness, elevated heart-rate and vomiting. Usually symptoms go away but they can cause deadly shock.

6. Nutmeg – Nutmeg can cause seizures and central nervous system problems if your dog ingests it. In some cases it can even cause death. If you want to share plain sweet potatoes or pumpkin with your dog, that’s okay. Just make sure it doesn’t contain any nutmeg in them!

7. Sage – Though sage isn’t deadly to dogs, the essential oils in it does cause an upset tummy so it’s best to avoid.

8. Chocolate, Dough & Batter – Chocolate is an obvious one. But dough can actually rise in your dog’s stomach which causes them bloating and severe pain. Bot batter and dough contain raw eggs which could cause Salmonella poisoning so it’s best to keep your pups away from these items as well.