Garlic bread is a common side for many people. It’s the perfect partner for soups and a bunch of other dishes. And just like with humans, the smell of a nice and crisp piece of garlic bread can easily catch your dog’s attention.
So, can you feed your dog leftover garlic bread? While your dog might be begging for a bite of that gorgeous garlic bread, it might be best to keep it out of your dog’s reach.
Garlic bread isn’t the best food for dogs as it contains garlic, which is poisonous for dogs, butter, and salt, which is also bad for canines, as well as a bunch of other ingredients that aren’t ideal for your pet.
For those looking to learn about garlic toxicity for dogs in more detail, you can read more information in our definitive guide.
If you want to learn more about why you shouldn’t feed your dog garlic bread, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we go through all the reasons that garlic bread isn’t good for your dog and why you shouldn’t give that spare piece to a begging puppy.
Why You Shouldn’t Feed Your Dog Garlic Bread
There are lots of foods and ingredients out there that are good for humans but bad for dogs. So, while you might munch on a bunch of garlic bread every week without any problem, your dog might not be able to handle it as easily.
This is because a lot of the ingredients in your classic piece of garlic bread could cause a bunch of complications for dogs, which we’ll be diving into in this section.
Garlic
The first reason you shouldn’t feed this food to your dog is because of the titular ingredient: garlic. While it’s a staple for many dishes and cuisines around the world, garlic is not good for dogs. In fact, the entire allium family can pose risks for dogs, but we’ll touch more on that later.
The main reason that garlic is bad for dogs is that it contains n-propyl disulfide. This is a compound that is toxic for dogs because it attacks their red blood cells. The red blood cells are responsible for bringing oxygen around the body, which means they are vital for bodily functions.
If your dog eats too much garlic, they are at risk of developing symptoms such as diarrhea and lethargy. While garlic poisoning is rarely fatal in dogs, it could lead to hemolytic anemia, which isn’t ideal for any dog to have.
Butter & Cheese
Another reason you shouldn’t feed garlic bread to your dog is that it contains butter and cheese. While not all varieties of garlic bread have cheese, there are tons of recipes that require a bit of cheese on the bread. Additionally, you could even add the cheese on top of the bread after making it to emphasize the flavor. And while cheese has a lot of health benefits for humans, it contains a lot of fat that may not be good for your dog.
Additionally, butter is basically all fat. High levels of fat can lead to obesity and a wide range of other conditions for dogs. So, while one piece of garlic bread might not do much damage, if you regularly give your dog leftover garlic bread, they may start gaining too much weight on top of the garlic damaging their red blood cells.
Oil
One of the ways people spruce up their normal garlic bread recipe is to drizzle it with olive oil. While this gives great flavor to the bread, it can be bad for dogs. The reason for this is that having too much oil and fat is never good for a dog, and it could cause digestive issues in your pet.
Additional Herbs
One of the reasons people love cooking garlic bread is the wide array of different herbs you can add to personalize the flavor. Everyone adds different herbs to their garlic bread, so some of them might actually be safe and even healthy for dogs. However, there are many herbs out there that aren’t good for dogs, like the ones in the allium family.
As we mentioned earlier, the allium family is toxic for dogs and can damage their red blood cells because of the n-propyl disulfide in it. The allium family includes onions, chives, shallots, and a bunch of other herbs which you should keep away from your dog as much as possible.
Conclusion
As pet owners, we always want to give our dogs their favorite foods. However, while some food like garlic bread might be healthy and very tasty for humans, it paints a different picture for dogs.
Since garlic bread is very aromatic, there’s a high chance it will catch your dog’s attention. However, keep in mind that garlic bread contains a bunch of ingredients that aren’t safe or good for dogs, so you shouldn’t feed leftover pieces to your dog to avoid any complications.