Our pets are at our mercy, so it’s up to us to make sure they’re safe. This can be tough sometimes, because a lot of seemingly harmless everyday foods can be toxic to our animals—especially dogs, who can’t tell the difference between a tasty snack and a one-way ticket to the emergency vet.
Your best bet is probably to assume that any human food has the potential to be hazardous to your pet, but this graphic from the Bark is a handy guide for the most common foods they might encounter:
Some of these are pretty surprising. For example, grapes (and raisins) seem harmless enough, and your dog might scarf them right up—but unfortunately, both fresh and dried grapes can cause acute kidney failure. Onions and garlic can be toxic to dogs too, triggering blood cell damage or even anemia when consumed in high quantities.
This graphic doesn’t cover every single potentially dangerous human food that a dog might encounter. For a full list of foods, plants, medicines and more that are poisonous to pets, check out this database from the Pet Poison hotline. It lets you search foods, medications, household chemicals, and other potential poisons by name, and tells you how dangerous an exposure is for different kinds of pets.
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Hopefully, you’ll never need the Pet Poison database, but if your dog does ingest something they shouldn’t, it can help you figure out how serious the situation is. Your family vet should always be your first call, but for pet poison-specific questions, there are two national helplines you can call any time:
ASPCA Pet Poison Control Hotline: (888) 426-4435
National Pet Poison Helpline: (800) 233-6680
This article was originally published on August 25, 2015. It was updated on May 21, 2021 with a new photo, alternate text for the Bark infographic, national poison control hotline information, and to reflect Lifehacker’s current style guidelines.
