12/14/2024
Please read this important warning for dog owners to keep your pup safe this holiday season!
Gingerbread House Dangers For Dogs, by Margit Maxwell
Look at the photo. Funny stuff, right? Nope. Why is this situation not funny? - Because gingerbread dough often contains cloves, nutmeg, and allspice.
If your dog eats your lovely decorated gingerbread house, the clove, nutmeg, and allspice content of the dough could make your dog very sick or in some cases, it could even be fatal.
Most gingerbread dough recipes can include these common spices: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, coriander, and nutmeg.
Clove, nutmeg and allspice all contain the compound eugenol which can cause irritation of the GI tract, and when ingested in larger quantities, could cause liver damage. Nutmeg also contains a toxic
compound called myristicin, found in the oil of the nutmeg seed. A problem dose of nutmeg = 1 tsp of ground nutmeg. A toxic dose of powdered nutmeg is thought to be 5 grams.
The oil myristicin can cause severe disorientation, agitation, high blood pressure, and possible seizures.
A toxic dose of ground clove would need to be quite large - half a gram of powdered clove per kg of body weight to be fatal.
Allspice contains less of the eugenol compound than the other two mentioned spices so it tends to be less lethal but it can still make your dog very sick. An allspice lethal dose would need to be quite large, 2.5 grams per 10 kilos of dog weight.
Symptoms of clove, nutmeg, or allspice ingestion (other than a missing or partially eaten gingerbread house):
-vomiting
-diarrhea,
-excessive drooling,
-loss of appetite,
-disorientation and in serious cases,
- seizures are possible.
The seriousness of the ingestion of the gingerbread problem will depend on:
1. The size of the dog. - the smaller the dog mass, the more serious the toxicity levels.
2. How much of the gingerbread house was eaten? One bite? One wall? The whole building? The more gingerbread that was eaten, the more serious the problem.
3. Gingerbread dough that contains all three of the mentioned spices is delivering a triple dose of eugenol in the case of nutmeg, myristicin. Know the ingredients that are in your gingerbread dough.
Courtesy of: The Labrador Club
