Dogs can eat onions, I tell you this clearly as a Veterinarian expert in canine nutrition, with a clinic dedicated exclusively to the nutrition of dogs and cats, we have over twenty years of experience in this field. If you follow our instructions you will see that there is no danger and that the onion is not bad for dogs.
They say that dogs can’t eat onions, chocolate, grapes, garlic, raisins, tomatoes… and I don’t know how many other hoaxes… Are you sure? Onions are bad for dogs? My dog shouldn’t eat chocolate? All this has been created to scare you into not giving your dog any food other than pellets.
What happens if my dog eats onions?
Nothing if you follow the recommendations and advice we give you in this article, as clear and simple as that. After you finish reading this article you will understand how ridiculous it is that “dogs can’t eat onion” that “onion is bad for dogs”, and how they have been watching your face. If you prefer the video: Dogs can eat onion, chocolate… there you will see how my dogs eat that and other foods, if you follow the guidelines I teach you you will have no problems.
Dogs can eat onions
I say it this clear and forceful. Keep in mind this phrase of the physician Paracelsus that I always use and have as a guide regarding nutrition and the products of nature in dogs, cats, humans and any living being in general: “Nothing is poison, everything is poison, the secret is in the dose”. I’ll put it another way, what if my dog eats onion (or yours) daily and said amount of onion is a piece similar to the size of your little finger nail, NOTHING would happen. It’s as simple as that, do you realize that it’s a matter of quantity?
Such myths -of forbidden foods- are a luxury for the industry because due to the insecurity that these nutrients, most of them present in many of our foods, cause you stay faithful to the pellets and do not give natural foods and nutrients to your dog, which would undoubtedly benefit him a lot.
Be careful, a dog MUST NOT eat chocolate, but that does not mean that he CANNOT. Answer me something Will anything happen to your dog if you give him a pinch of chocolate, or onion, or garlic or… what do I know, the thousand “forbidden” foods they tell you? NOTHING will happen to him absolutely NOTHING.
This from a Canine Nutrition Expert Veterinarian with over 20 years of experience who has given his dogs (as part of their diet) chocolate, onions and many of the other forbidden foods.
Answer me something Will anything happen to your dog if you give him a pinch of chocolate, or onion, or garlic or… what do I know?
Anything you read on the internet scaring you about “The forbidden foods for your dog” is written by theorists who don’t have the slightest idea about dog nutrition and copy everything from the same web or from dog nutrition books written and sponsored by the big food companies!
To give you an idea of the ridiculousness of these positions I will give you two examples of how they scare you and the “counterexample” that is, my patients, my dogs, who have always eaten the aforementioned forbidden foods.
Onions and dogs
Look, I have never given a raw onion to a dog, I have not met any dog that likes it, I do not include it in any of my recipes, not because it is “toxic” but because DOGS DO NOT LIKE RAW ONIONS. There will be exceptions, I have no doubt (I had a dog, Tara, who loved raw peppers. She would steal them. None, well, sometimes some diarrhea, but nothing more).
A dog and a human CAN be intoxicated by onions, yes, but they need to ingest very large quantities. I underline the CAN because it does not mean that they will get intoxicated. See the example below.
To give you an idea of the cheating truth you have been living with regarding the onion and your dog, read the following lines and pay close attention.
Video. Dogs can eat onions, chocolate…
How much onion is bad for dogs
In order that your dog COULD (not a fact, but a possibility) get intoxicated, it would have to ingest 0.5% of its weight in onions. In other words, a 40 kg dog would have to eat 200 grams of onion, three medium sized onions! Who in their right mind, with a little intelligence and common sense, is going to give their Labrador 3 onions or their poodle half an onion?
For a “possible” (not sure) poisoning you should give your dog a lot of onions Who in their right mind would do this?
We continue. I do give onions to my dogs When? When I offer them some leftovers from my meals, many of them are cooked with fried onions. Any problems? No problem. I make a stew where I fry two or three diced onions, add tuna, tomato (another supposedly “toxic” food) and I mix it with pasta (macaroni), and I always give my dogs 1, 2, 3 spoonfuls with their food because they love it. Have any of my dogs died or been poisoned in these 20 years with this practice? NONE.
CHOCOLATE
Well, more or less the same as with the onion. I sometimes share chocolate ice cream with my dogs. Quality ice cream is an excellent source of vegetable fat and calcium, among other nutrients.
You will see in the video I have prepared how I offer chocolate to my dogs. They do not eat it every day and it is not part of their diet, it is just a snack, a little treat when I am eating and they ask for it.
Just as I offered you the onion data, I am doing the same with chocolate so that you can see the ridiculousness of the thinking that has bound us.
While cocoa (pure chocolate) and baked chocolate are much more toxic, let’s talk about the most common, the one present in milk chocolate in commercial bars and in ice cream.
How much classic chocolate is necessary for a POSSIBLE intoxication? For a dog of about 15 kilos you should give 600 grams. Who in their right mind and with two fingers in front would give 5 – 6 bars of commercial chocolate to their dog?
The same case with bitter chocolate. You should give about 250 grams. Would you give a quarter of a kilo to your cocker, let alone a cocker, to a mastiff of 50 – 60 or more kilos?
Check out this interactive chart from National Geographic regarding chocolate and dogs (very cute).
A chocolate cake to entertain him/her? Please! Stop humanizing your dog. You want to treat him/her? You buy a nice piece of meat and give it to him/her raw or cooked, fried, whatever he/she likes. Period.
OTHER FOODS
Do not expect me to give you an example of each of the false toxic foods for your dog, with the two described above you can guide you perfectly well for the rest. The list is huge and there can be as many as people or the big pet food industry “discovers” through their group of scientists they sponsor.
CONCLUSION
Use common sense, a dog’s diet does not need onions, chocolate or any of the wrongly called “toxic foods”, however, there is nothing wrong if you give leftovers of your food that have some onions or share a snack of the so called toxic foods (as I show in the video) with him/her. The same goes for fruits and other foods; on the contrary, you enrich his/her digestive system.
Your dog can eat anything, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to give him onion soup, or half a kilo of chocolate replacing one of his meals. Or a few drops of wine, please! A little logic and sense.
If you want to know about puppy nutrition, I recommend my puppy food article.
Always remember the phrase of Paracelsus that I wrote above.
Here is a series of recommended articles:
- Can dogs eat rice, noodles, pasta?
- Puppy food and food for puppies. Key tips
- Can chicken broth for dogs kill yours?
- Calcium for adult dogs and puppies
- How to get your dog to eat kibble. 7 tricks
- Foods that regenerate the liver in dogs (liver disease)
Subscribe to the free online workshop on nutrition for dogs
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