In my internets research I have found the following: The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen Denmark says: “Garlic is dangerous when the dog/cat eat garlic equivalent to 5% of the dogs/cats body weight. To put this into perspective, a dog weighing in at 20lbs would have to eat 500 grams (1.1 lbs.) of garlic daily over a considerable period of time before it starts to become dangerous.”
Can anybody point me toward any stats that’ll back this up? I’ve been coming across people who now consider garlic to be on the list of poisons, and I wonder if they’re not putting the actual danger into perspective i.e. they don’t realize the volume a dog/cat would have to eat in order for garlic to be truly dangerous.
I’d just like to find more facts on this to feel I’m truly “in the know” on this topic.
Giving this a little bump, in case somebody who may know missed it yesterday.
I’ve done a bunch of googling and have been sorting through lots of layperson opinions on dog topic message boards, but haven’t found any more official stats.
Unfortunately, you need access to the research journals if you want the hard data on garlic toxicity studies. If there is a good-sized university in your area, the library can help you out. Even if the university doesn’t have a physical copy of the article you want, lots of journals have online access for subscribing educational institutions.
But yeah, the layperson freakout is just that. Yes, garlic can cause problems if the dog or cat eats enough, and for some individuals “enough” might not be very much. But, odds are, your dog or cat wouldn’t willingly eat enough garlic to give itself problems. There are better foods to freakout over.
Tapioca: Onions are related to, but different from garlic. Onions have much more consistent evidence for being problematic, and should be avoided, particularly in cat food.
The whole poisonous or not line isn’t always solid, and can change by the species eating, the plant involved, the individual animal, the season, etc, etc.
Garlic and onion are in a large percentage of the human prepared foods. Considering how often dogs eat human food, there would be a lot of dogs dying daily from garlic and onion if small amounts poisoned them.
I have a 90 lb German Shepherd. A couple summers ago, I was making salsa and dropped a couple pieces of chopped onion on the floor and allowed him to gobble them up. A few minutes later, I guess the typical onion burn, his mouth and eyes were extremely irritated. A teaspoon of onions it hardly a fifth of his body weight, but he was salivating profusely and couldn’t drink water. Just stood there in a daze, drooling (sounds like most dogs). I can imagine what a cup or so would’ve done to him. But after giving him some ice cubes, and when the sting wore out, he was fine. I just make sure to drop other salsa ingredients. Hopefully he’s associated the smell with not such a good time.
Anecdotal, but my dog loves onions (in the same family as garlic) and occasionally snarfs up a slice or a piece if I accidentally drop a piece of onion while cutting them up. She is a chow hound and is unfortunately under foot when I cook… but, anyways, she inarably throws up the larger pieces of onion. It is almost always well coated and slimy in bubbly, mucosal, yellow bile and digestive juices. I imagine that a dog might have consistent vomitous of this type if it consumed such large amounts of garlic…I doubt they would actually ingest it because they would probably reject it first.
I know IAMS has a HUGELY garlickey, soft, peanut butter treat for dogs, or at least they did. I’ve also seen (and smelled) similar garlic treats for dogs.
My husband and I have been using garlic in one for or another on our “kidz” for years. Usually we sprinkle a bit of garlic powder on their food then mix up everything. Occasionally we may throw a bit of chopped fresh garlic instead.
Garlic + a sprinkle of brewer’s yeast = the best home ready for fleas hands down. The Kidz haven’t had a flea issue since we started this regimen. We add it to their food. There’s a product out there that’s a garlic/yeast mixture made for the same thing. The Kidz don’t like the regular yeast as much as the brewer’s. The theory is that biting critters – fleas, mosquitoes, and ticks – don’t like the taste of garlic that’s in the bloodstream. They’ll take one bite and that’s it.
Besides The Kidz love garlic. They especially love a brewer’s yeast/garlic biscuit made by One Earth Naturals. They’re even better smeared with peanut butter
Excellent point. For example, avocado is thought to be poisonous to birds. It can be demonstrated in a laboratory setting, as long as you choose the proper strain of avocado and use material from the right distance from the pit. Otherwise, it does not seem to be toxic.
And garlic has been used in dog foods/treats as a flavor enhancer for eons. It increases palatability.
I had this whole post composed, politely pointing out how this technique is completely ineffective given the biology of fleas and ticks and dogs and, almost certainly, you had just gotten lucky in avoiding a massive parasite outbreak.
But then I remembered that I’m not a vet yet. So I can’t be making posts like that.
Please go talk to your local vet about the advantages of your technique compared to topical flea and tick control like Advantage or Frontline.
Garlic + Brewers yeast = no effect when studied in a controlled laboratory setting. And I am a vet. Flea populations wax and wane so much with microclimate/etc. that it is difficult to really study their numbers outside of a lab.
Frontline/Advantage are fantastic. Now. I am sure that fleas will develop resistance over time.
