Labradoodle & Goldendoodle Forum
Myth Busters
Karen and I had this discussion this morning about feeding Thanksgiving Turkey to our doods. Can we or can't we? Pancreatitis? Here's the discussion:
Got an email from Adrianne re: if it's okay to give turkey to Samantha for Thanksgiving. I knew I'd read some kind of warning about that, so looked it up. The white meat is okay provided it's free of skin, fat, gravies, etc. The dark meat, organs, and especially the SKIN are dangerous...vets report a noticeable increase in cases of pancreatitis in dogs around Thanksgiving.
Do you want to post a warning...maybe in the next few days before Thanksgiving? Maybe main forum instead of Food Group, more people will see it?
Hi Karen, I was just as surprised as you to read that dogs can't have turkey. I feed ground turkey and from the time I was a kid my mother would take ALL the innards (from that yucky bag from inside the turkey) and put it in a pot with celery and onions and simmer it to make a soupy concoction that she used to baste the bird with and at the end of the day, it all went to the dogs. The heart, liver, gizzards, neck were in that soup. I had never heard of not feeding turkey and pancreatitis.
When I did a google search "dogs eating turkey pancreas" a bunch of nonsense replys came up. Like: "dogtopics, funtrivia, and various blog posts, invisable fense and yahooanswers. My point is not 100% reliable info. I next went to Dr. Pitcairn: no listing in Index under "turkey" but under "Pancreatitis:" "This condition, usually seen in overweight, middle aged dogs, often appears as a sudden, severe illness. Symptoms: loss of appetite, vomiting, diarreah, weakness, abdominal pain. Prevention: a properly balanced natural diet and regular excercise. Do not overfeed, because obesity is a predisposing factor to pancreatitis." No mention of turkey!
I think any human food is OK for dogs in moderation. The problems, like in people, comes from feeding too much fat, in high quantities, for too long. Many of the food warnings, especially old ones were fosered by the dogfood companies to convince people that they should not feed people food to dogs. Any high fat food should be given in moderation. Not just turkey, but ham and fish, too.
Regular Ground beef has more fat than ground turkey. Tuna, salmon and pork have more fat then turkey. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, I will definetly be sharing my bird with my dogs. But for a few days before and after, I will lower the fat. I am wary of putting out general statements like "Don't feed your dog _______." Anything is OK in moderation. I used to have a Samoyed who loved chocolate. I gave it to her & she lived to 16.
It did seem odd to me, too- then I started thinking, of all the protein sources i've seen used in dog food & treats- duck (much higher in fat than turkey)-bison, salmon, venison, rabbit, beef, etc etc- I can't remember ever seeing turkey used, even in the highest quality stuff. So maybe it just has to do with the holidays in general, and people wanting to over-indulge their dogs by sharing too much of the holiday foods. I do know that turkey is higher in trytophan than any other protein source, but in people, all that does is make you sleepy. As usual, you look at things so rationally.
You are right, as usual. The problem is with dogs who are already predisposed to it for various reasons; breed, age, hormonal imbalances, diabetes, and high-fat diets in general. Neither poodles, labs, or GR's are prone to it. Evidently, the dogs who are already predisposed are then given turkey skin & other high-fat "treats' at holiday time and that's what causes a peak in the cases seen at Thanksgiving & Xmas.
Sorry to be an alarmist! :-)
This got us to thinking about many myths about feeding our dogs and how they are advanced by people especially now that the Internet can bring many opinions to you in an instant. When we say RESEARCH everything, it is really true. You can see through our conversation, that you can feed your doodles turkey, but you also need to know about fat content and obesity connected to it.
We wish all of you a Happy Tnanksgiving, and share some of that bird with your doodles!
Can we BUST any other myths?
Got an email from Adrianne re: if it's okay to give turkey to Samantha for Thanksgiving. I knew I'd read some kind of warning about that, so looked it up. The white meat is okay provided it's free of skin, fat, gravies, etc. The dark meat, organs, and especially the SKIN are dangerous...vets report a noticeable increase in cases of pancreatitis in dogs around Thanksgiving.
Do you want to post a warning...maybe in the next few days before Thanksgiving? Maybe main forum instead of Food Group, more people will see it?
Hi Karen, I was just as surprised as you to read that dogs can't have turkey. I feed ground turkey and from the time I was a kid my mother would take ALL the innards (from that yucky bag from inside the turkey) and put it in a pot with celery and onions and simmer it to make a soupy concoction that she used to baste the bird with and at the end of the day, it all went to the dogs. The heart, liver, gizzards, neck were in that soup. I had never heard of not feeding turkey and pancreatitis.
When I did a google search "dogs eating turkey pancreas" a bunch of nonsense replys came up. Like: "dogtopics, funtrivia, and various blog posts, invisable fense and yahooanswers. My point is not 100% reliable info. I next went to Dr. Pitcairn: no listing in Index under "turkey" but under "Pancreatitis:" "This condition, usually seen in overweight, middle aged dogs, often appears as a sudden, severe illness. Symptoms: loss of appetite, vomiting, diarreah, weakness, abdominal pain. Prevention: a properly balanced natural diet and regular excercise. Do not overfeed, because obesity is a predisposing factor to pancreatitis." No mention of turkey!
I think any human food is OK for dogs in moderation. The problems, like in people, comes from feeding too much fat, in high quantities, for too long. Many of the food warnings, especially old ones were fosered by the dogfood companies to convince people that they should not feed people food to dogs. Any high fat food should be given in moderation. Not just turkey, but ham and fish, too.
Regular Ground beef has more fat than ground turkey. Tuna, salmon and pork have more fat then turkey. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, I will definetly be sharing my bird with my dogs. But for a few days before and after, I will lower the fat. I am wary of putting out general statements like "Don't feed your dog _______." Anything is OK in moderation. I used to have a Samoyed who loved chocolate. I gave it to her & she lived to 16.
It did seem odd to me, too- then I started thinking, of all the protein sources i've seen used in dog food & treats- duck (much higher in fat than turkey)-bison, salmon, venison, rabbit, beef, etc etc- I can't remember ever seeing turkey used, even in the highest quality stuff. So maybe it just has to do with the holidays in general, and people wanting to over-indulge their dogs by sharing too much of the holiday foods. I do know that turkey is higher in trytophan than any other protein source, but in people, all that does is make you sleepy. As usual, you look at things so rationally.
You are right, as usual. The problem is with dogs who are already predisposed to it for various reasons; breed, age, hormonal imbalances, diabetes, and high-fat diets in general. Neither poodles, labs, or GR's are prone to it. Evidently, the dogs who are already predisposed are then given turkey skin & other high-fat "treats' at holiday time and that's what causes a peak in the cases seen at Thanksgiving & Xmas.
Sorry to be an alarmist! :-)
This got us to thinking about many myths about feeding our dogs and how they are advanced by people especially now that the Internet can bring many opinions to you in an instant. When we say RESEARCH everything, it is really true. You can see through our conversation, that you can feed your doodles turkey, but you also need to know about fat content and obesity connected to it.
We wish all of you a Happy Tnanksgiving, and share some of that bird with your doodles!
Can we BUST any other myths?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles on
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OMG. I went foodshopping and I came home to find you and Karen have become experts in tryptophan without me.LOL. I think anything to excess will cause problems and anything in moderation is fine. If there is already a problem, stay away from too much or any dark meat and skin of the turkey. If no problems, let them enjoy some turkey. Does that sum up the myth?
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Permalink Reply by Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle on
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Well, I am not going to give it too much more thought, LOL! It would still take an awfully big amount to produce these diseases- (like the saccharin causes cancer thing many years back- yeah, if you drank a 1000 cans a day) I still agree that a healthy dog would not be harmed by having a small amount of plain old white meat turkey, especially if he's used to getting people food, and I can't imagine there's anything wrong with lean ground, either.
As for any doodles at my house, we never seem to have enough of the white meat for ourselves, let alone give it to doodles. He's had enough dietary changes lately...besides, he probably wouldn't eat it anyway, LOL! -
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Permalink Reply by Adina P on
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If any of you want to know more than you ever wanted to know about Tryptophan (at least in the human body) call on our member Crystal Whitten She is getting her PhD in something involving nutrition and neuro stuff. Crystal is a good friend of mine, a dog owner (but not doodle owner) who joined to keep track of me...LOL. She was one of my nutrition professors :-D and is a lover of nutrition and neurochemistry/neuroscience -- I love to argue with her, though NOT because I know more ;-) She will attest to my never-ending skepticism/annoying debating qualities.
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Permalink Reply by Adrianne Matzkin on
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Thought I asked a simple little question! I am so happy that I didn't read this until today - there is so much food for thought - it makes your head spin LLLOOOOLLLL!!
Well, Samantha celebrated (and survived) her 1st of many Thanksgivings dinners yesterday with my family. On her dinner plate she had turkey (white meat), baked sweet potato and string beans. She was in heaven!! She is feeling great and her tummy is just fine (read between the lines on that) today.
What I am taking away from this discussion is to use common sense - if it isn't good for you, then it probably it isn't good for our Doodles either and everything in moderation.
Samantha and I and her DD, Mark, wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Adrianne -
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Permalink Reply by Lucy's Mom~ Liz on
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WOW that was a lot to read about Turkey! I'll have to tell Dh to go easy on sharing his scraps ( we girls are veggies).
What is it about chocolate? My sheltie ate a TON of it in one day 30 years ago and she was fine.
Is it the caffeine? -
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theobromides I believe. It's related to caffeine...probably depends on how MUCH chocolate and the size of the dog.
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Adina's right; it's a substance called theobromine, and the dark unsweetened baking chocolate is the most dangerous, but all chocolate has some. Here's a link (from a vet website, by a vet) that gives more info about chocolate & toxicosis caused by chocolate:
http://vetmedicine.about.com/cs/nutritiondogs/a/chocolatetoxici.htm -
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So we got the scoop on turkey. What about Ham? Samantha does get pork chops when I cook them for myself but what about a spiral ham? I guess my question is really about the seasonings used.
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Thank you for bringing this up. With the conversation steering toward the dangers of tryptophan, I'm not sure if everyone knew that it is an essential nutrient involved in many functions. The key is quantity--the poison (for just about everything) is in the dose... I'm not sure a little Turkey is enough to provide harmful quantities of tryptophan and hurt a dog.
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