After cooking delightful fried mashed potato balls for your Saturday movie night, you might be tempted to share some with your dog. With begging puppy-dog eyes, who wouldn’t give in? Mashed potatoes are a creamy dish for humans. But while you’re perfectly fine with giving some to your dog, you also wonder, are potatoes safe for dogs to eat?
Potatoes aren’t toxic for dogs as long as it’s given baked or boiled. These tubers are part of the nightshade family and naturally produce a pesticidal toxin called solanine. Before giving potatoes to your dog, make sure it has been boiled to reduce the toxins that can also be poisonous to humans.
Read on to find out more on how you can feed potato to your pup safely.
Quick Navigation
Can Dogs Eat Potatoes Yes Or No?
Yes. You can feed your dogs potatoes but in moderation and only feed them cooked potatoes.
FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine’s investigation displays a connection between the developing heart illness called dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and the inclusion of ingredients such as potatoes, lentils, and peas in a dog’s diet
While boiled potatoes aren’t poisonous, including potatoes in your dog’s daily fare could pose harm in the long run.
What Health Benefits Can My Dog Get From Potatoes?
Potatoes are packed with needed nutrients for your dog’s growth. It’s rich in iron, magnesium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin B6. These nutrients act as an antioxidant, can nourish your pup’s coating, improve metabolism, and maintain the health of the central nervous system.
Potatoes contain essential nutrients, but remember, it’s rich in carbohydrates so always give them in moderation or as an occasional treat. Even for humans, too much carbohydrates could spike the sugar level.
Is It Okay For Dogs To Eat Raw Potatoes?
Never feed your dog raw potatoes, especially the green ones. Eating raw potatoes instigates solanine poisoning where dogs may suffer from gastrointestinal distress, heart problems, and difficulty in breathing.
A study shows that ingesting an amount of 2-5 milligrams of solanine per kilogram of body weight can be toxic. Any more than that will be lethal.
Depending on the amount of ingested solanine from raw potatoes, the symptoms may kick in either within 8-12 hours or in a matter of 10 minutes. Although symptoms don’t appear with your dog, the best response is to call or visit your local veterinarian.
Are Cooked Potatoes Good For Dogs?
Yes. As mentioned above, you should avoid feeding raw potatoes to your pup but cooked potatoes are fine.
If you want to give dogs a creamy treat, serve potatoes to your pup only when it’s baked or boiled. Cooking potatoes in this way reduces the amount of toxic solanine.
[Related Article: Can Dogs Eat Carrots Like Bugs Bunny?]
Can I Give My Dog Potato Every Day?
You can give your dog potatoes as a treat, but it’s not advisable to include them in their daily diet. The FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine links the development of dilated cardiomyopathy to food with concentrations of ingredients such as potatoes, lentils, and peas.
Is Potato Skin Good For Dogs?
No part of potatoes should go to waste – even its skin.
Cooked potato skin can provide your dogs with nutrients such as potassium, calcium, iron, B vitamins, and Vitamin C. But keep in mind that dogs should only enjoy it in little amounts. Potato skin contains oxalates that develop bladder stones in dogs when eaten excessively.
Too much ingestion of oxalates is dangerous and can induce symptoms such as loose stools, fatigue, seizure, and arrhythmia. But, indeed, the most common effect of oxalates would be the build-up of bladder stones that will damage your dog’s urinary function.
As mentioned above, and to remind you once more, never give raw potato skin to your dog. The green pigment in potatoes indicates solanine concentration. Solanine concentrates more in the upper 1/8 area of the potato skin. That said, eating the raw skin causes worse solanine poisoning than eating the insides.
Why Can’t Dogs Eat Mashed Potatoes?
The main problem why you should avoid feeding mashed potatoes to your dogs is mainly because they can be very starchy and contains too much calories and carbohydrates.
In the same way, since mashed potatoes are rich in carbs, dogs also break it down into glucose. That said, overfeeding your dog with mashed potatoes can be fatal to diabetic canines. It may also pose digestive discomfort and serious illnesses such as obesity and cancer.
Can I Feed My Dog Potato Chips?
Humans enjoy potato chips. Definitely!
But don’t be tempted to share them with your dog. Most potato chips are salted and heavily flavored. Too much salt can cause sodium toxicity, water retention, and trouble for your dog’s heart health.
Also, chips don’t offer many health benefits to dogs. Yes, it’s flavorful, and dogs love salty foods – but that’s all there is. Potato chips contain more harmful additives and have zero nutritional value for your dog.
What Happens If My Dog Eats Potato Chips?
Your dog gobbled on potato chips while you’re not looking? It happens.
When your dog feasts on potato chips, the mild effect is they will get thirsty. However, eating excessive potato chips may also lead to more serious consequences such as vomiting, diarrhea, or tremors.
Monitor them for any discomfort. If symptoms appear in the first 24 hours, pay a visit to your nearest animal clinic for proper treatment.
Is Potato Fries Bad For Dogs?
Potato fries – especially salted and flavored ones aren’t poisonous, but the saltiness could pose an adverse impact on your dog’s health such as diarrhea and water retention, and kidney problems. Frequent ingestion of salted and flavored potato fries can cause high blood pressure, depression, seizures, or even death.
Potato fries are rich in carbohydrates and would raise glucose levels for diabetic dogs. Not only that, but the oil used in cooking potato fries is rich in dangerous kinds of fats for dogs – the trans and saturated fat can cause pancreatitis among dogs.
There are cases where you see your dog barf due to potato fries. And because of the saltiness, they thirst so much, so give them plenty of water to drink.
[Related Article: Can Dogs Eat Cheese?(Everything You Need To Know Today)]
Can Dogs Eat Sweet Potatoes?
Sweet potatoes are a healthier and tastier alternative to white potatoes. It’s low in fat, rich in iron, magnesium, calcium, and Vitamins A, B6, C. Just like white potatoes, make sure you bake or boil the sweet potatoes and peel the skin before feeding it to your dog.
Don’t give raw sweet potatoes to your dogs. Although they don’t contain solanine, uncooked sweet potatoes can still give your dog an upset stomach. Baking or boiling them first would be easier for your dog to digest.
