Can Dogs Eat Butter?

Hello there, Coco the Collie here. If you’re wondering whether we can eat butter or not, the answer is, well, not really.

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As dogs, we’re mostly lactose intolerant, and butter is made of milk! However, a little bit of butter won’t do us much harm if it’s in small quantities.

Butter is mostly saturated fat, so it’s not really good for us anyway. If we’ve given food containing butter, it probably won’t do us any harm, but you should avoid giving us butter in the future.

From a scientific standpoint, just about one tablespoon of butter will send us over our daily fat limit!

If you find that we’ve somehow accidentally got our paws in a tub of butter, don’t fret – it’s not ideal, but probably the worst that will happen is we’ll have a bit of a belly ache and a few irregular bowel movements.

These should pass in a day or so though, so keep an eye on us, and we should be right as rain again before long.

In fact, it’s a good idea to treat any fatty foods with caution – butter, oils, meat drippings/grease, chocolate, and meat scraps may cause pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) when ingested, especially if you feed us these frequently!

Veterinarians have even seen an increase in pet visits during the holidays because sneaky pups are being fed fatty foods and dishes with lots of butter, and this sends them into fat-overload!

Do dogs like butter?

While you now know that we shouldn’t really eat butter, you might be wondering if we like the taste.

Well, the truth is, our taste buds aren’t quite as attuned as your human ones, as while humans have about 9,000 taste buds on their tongues, we dogs only have about 1,700.

Despite this, dogs still maintain an ability to taste and can still prefer specific tastes over others, we’re even capable of tasting sweet, sour, salty, and bitter flavors.

I’ll let you in on a fun fact though, some researchers believe that because our omnivorous ancestors ate fruits in the wild, we have a soft spot for sweet flavors, while we tend to stay away from salty, sour, bitter, or spicy foods.

Personally, I eat anything, and I’ve tasted a smidge of butter on my human’s toast leftovers before. Most likely though, whether your dog likes butter will depend on their personal preferences.

Is cheese bad for dogs?

What about cheese I hear you ask? The truth is, many of us LOVE cheese – I’m yet to meet a dog who doesn’t!

However, while it can be a great training tool, cheese still contains lactose, so those dogs who are severely lactose intolerant will struggle to digest it well.

Cheese contains little lactose when compared to whole milk, but some dogs may have adverse reactions to cheese even in tiny amounts.

It’s best fed in small quantities, and you should observe your dog closely for signs of intestinal upset after feeding them cheese for the first time.

Can dogs drink milk?

Like cheese and butter, milk is a safe treat in small quantities, although some dogs may react more adversely than others.

That said, now and again my human treats me to a few tablespoons of cow’s milk or goat’s milk, but only when I’ve been really good!

It’s not a good idea to offer us an entire bowl in one sitting, as it can cause unpleasant reactions including diarrhea, vomiting, and loose stools.

Plus, like most dairy products, milk is high in fat and natural sugars, so it’s not very good for us anyway. Too much fat in our diet can lead to obesity and pancreatitis, which can make us very ill.

What snacks are good for dogs?

You might be looking for a snack to feed us that won’t upset our sensitive stomachs, and there are plenty of healthy snacks out there that are not only good for us but taste great too.

These include foods such as carrots, eggs, salmon, peanut butter, and certain fruits like blueberries. Some foods are OK for us but only in limited amounts, such as nuts like almonds and cashews (unsalted), and of course those dairy foods we mentioned above, which should only be fed to us in very small quantities.

You can find a full list of snacks that we can and can’t eat here.

What food is poisonous to dogs?

There are certain foods that we definitely shouldn’t eat as these can be poisonous, such as garlic, onion, or chives, which, whether raw or cooked, are particularly toxic to us dogs and can cause gastrointestinal irritation and red blood cell damage.

Sometimes, signs of illness don’t appear until days later with food from the onion family.

Chocolate is another one – while humans love it, chocolate is toxic for dogs as it contains a stimulant called theobromine (dark chocolate has the highest content of this) which is poisonous to us and can even cause kidney failure.

Macadamia nuts are another food that disagrees with us, as they contain a toxin that can affect our muscles and nervous system resulting in weakness, swollen limbs, and panting.

While grapes and raisins are in many sweet foods we love such as cakes, biscuits, and cereals – they’re toxic to us and this is why humans should be mindful of not only avoiding feeding us these on their own but also avoiding food that contains these.

The active ingredient which causes the toxin is unknown, however, both grapes and raisins are known to cause severe liver damage and kidney failure in dogs.

There’s a whole bunch of other foods we can’t eat, too. These include corn on the cob – which can be fatal to us – avocado, alcohol, and artificial sweetener.

You should also be wary of giving us cooked bones. While raw, uncooked bone makes a great chew toy, avoid cooking them as these can splinter easily and if we eat them in large quantities it could result in constipation or at worst, perforation of the gut, which could be fatal.