Written by Dr. Marcelle Landestoy, DVM
Refusing your dear Beagle food can be a daily struggle whenever they come begging with the most affectionate gestures.
They strike their cutest pose hoping for the tiniest bite of your food, but as much as you instinctively want to prove your love by feeding them, you may be doing the opposite if such foods are harmful.
So, which foods should you avoid feeding your Beagle?
Foods you should not feed your Beagle include high-sugar ones, dairy products, cheese, onion, mustard, and grapes. More poisonous ones are sugar-free gums, alcohol, chocolate, and yeast dough. Depending on your Beagle’s size and the quantity consumed, these foods may prove deadly.
Continue this article to learn more about foods your Beagle should avoid to ensure healthy growth.
I will also share quick and effective actions if your pup accidentally consumes them.
Foods Your Beagle Should Avoid
Your pups’ diet doesn’t only impact their immediate health, but being in their early developmental stages, it can also pose lifelong effects.
So with multiple foods around your home, you’d want to ensure your Beagles aren’t snooping around the wrong ones.
Some of these foods are more dangerous than others.
So we’ll use the traffic light colors to group them based on how severe their consumption effects are.
Green: Slight Discomfort
Yellow: Moderate to Intense Discomfort
Red: Poisonous or potentially fatal
Let’s go through each category!
Green: Slight Discomfort
Your Beagles are safe when they consume these foods in small proportions.
When eaten in excess, however, they can pose mild discomforts expressed by subtle or evident symptoms.
Here are our “GREEN” foods:
High-Sugar Foods & Drinks
As with humans, your Beagle needs some sugar to provide carbohydrates.
They need the energy to run around playing with you all day.
Regardless, it can be detrimental when taken in excess. Some familiar symptoms include vomiting from stomach upsets, dental cavities, and obesity.
In more severe cases, it may cause diabetes because of the overwhelming sugar amounts your dog’s insulin needs to regulate.
At this point, you’ll need to inject them with insulin on your vet’s directive, lower their sugary food consumption, and exercise them regularly.
Typical foods with high amounts include ice cream, sweets, and candies.
Even fruits like pineapples contain too much sugar, let alone processed pineapple juices.
Dairy Products
Most Beagles are lactose intolerant, so serving them large bowls of cow’s milk is not a good idea.
A few tablespoons can be safe whenever they beg, but it shouldn’t become habitual.
Likewise, they should avoid excessive consumption of other dairy products like cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream.
If not, it may cause abdominal pain, vomiting, and fatigue since it doesn’t digest in their intestines.
Other symptoms you may likely discover from 30 minutes to hours later include:
- Dehydration causing excessive thirst
- Frequent, abnormal toileting around your home
- Diarrhea
- Weight gain due to the conversion of excess lactase into fats.
Moreover, consuming dairy products can provoke pancreatitis, a more severe condition.
Salty Foods
Your Beagle may experience hypernatremia (high elevations of sodium) if they consume too many salty foods with less water.
Although the flip side can be the case with inadequate salt consumption, hypernatremia is more common.
It causes dehydration as their tissues release fluids to balance the sodium levels in their bodies.
And when they lose too many fluids, it can cause fatigue, drowsiness, body stiffness, and even kidney failure in worse scenarios.
Like in humans, salt is safe for your dogs in moderate consumption, but some foods contain too much.
Fast foods, fries, potato chips, pizza, some dog treats, and canned meals are some examples.
Always check the nutritional value of canned foods for their sodium content before serving your pups.
Also, consult your veterinarian whenever in doubt.
Undercooked Foods
Some pet parents feel there’s nothing wrong with feeding their pups undercooked foods.
Even worse, some serve them raw foods like meat or fish.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), serving your Beagles undercooked foods exposes them to bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria.
These bacteria lead to food poisoning that can cause diarrhea. Dehydration, fever, and vomiting are also common symptoms.
Even if your Beagle begs for raw meat, ensure you first cook it extensively.
The high temperature will kill pathogens possibly present, ultimately keeping your pups healthy and happy.
Avocados
Avocados are undeniably delicious with multiple health benefits for humans, not your canine friend.
Although they can still enjoy its vitamins and anti-inflammatory properties, they can cause more harm than good.
When your Beagles overeat an avocado’s flesh, it can cause obesity due to its high-fat and calorie-dense nature.
Pancreatitis and gastrointestinal pain are also on the cards.
Despite the general conception that persin, contained in avocado pits, is highly toxic, a recent study has disproved it.
But whatever idea you subscribe to, it’s better to remain on the safer side by altogether avoiding it or feeding your dogs just a little of the flesh.
Coconuts and Coconut Oil
Feeding your Beagle coconut or its oil has benefits and side effects.
They ease digestion, inflammation, and coughing. Conversely, coconut oil leads to diarrhea, worsens pancreatitis, and even triggers allergies when eaten uncontrollably.
For most pet parents, it’s difficult to determine the safe amounts or ascertain and avoid the particular ones that could cause allergies.
So visiting your dog’s vet is your best bet.
Recommendations
If your Beagles have accidentally eaten any of these foods, stop them from further consumption by removing the food from their reach.
Monitor them for any symptoms that should stop after some time while providing extra care.
But if the symptoms persist for too long, contact a vet.
Yellow: Moderate to Intense Discomfort
When eaten in large portions or regularly, these “yellow” foods can cause moderate to extreme discomfort to your Beagle. They include:
Cooked Bones
Though you must cook meat extensively before feeding your pups, completely discard any bones first.
And if you must give them bones, they must be raw ones.
When cooked, bones become soft, less flexible, and brittle.
They easily break into tiny, sharp shards because dogs don’t chew them very well, causing choking and mouth injuries.
Internal bleeding also occurs as the pieces pierce some delicate organs of their gastrointestinal tract.
It is a life-threatening condition requiring immediate treatment from your vet.
Moreover, cooked bones no longer contain essential nutrients like phosphorus, calcium, and minerals.
They’re just not worth it.
Allium Vegetables
Onion, garlic, scallions, and leeks, members of the allium family, are far from healthy for your dogs.
They contain a compound, N-propyl Disulphide, which targets red blood cells, ultimately causing anemia.
If you think your Beagle has eaten them confirm your suspicions by observing signs of:
- Weakness
- Fainting
- Reddish urine
- Decreased appetite.
Not only should your Beagle avoid every part of these fresh vegetables, but their cooked, fried, and powdered form.
They can easily be in various home dishes and processed foods, so you should be very careful.
Your pup can munch numerous other vegetables, but onions, garlic, and its allium genus members are off-limits.
Nuts
Many pet parents are unaware of nuts’ high content in cookies, cakes, muffins, and other baked foods.
But for yet-to-be-discovered reasons, nuts like Macadamia, English, and walnuts are not safe for your Beagle consumption.
For now, we know that nuts contain high amounts of fats, which can trigger various health complications.
Pancreatitis is a severe one.
Within a day after consumption, your pups may manifest the following symptoms:
- Reduced appetite
- Vomiting
- Fever
- Weakness
- Tremors.
It would help if you quickly took them to their vet for some checkup look, possible diagnosis, and treatment.
Mustard
You can get carried away sharing some of your sweet, spicy mustard with your pups, but that’s not the best move, health-wise.
Your Beagles can’t tolerate mustard’s seed toxicity, adversely disrupting their digestive system.
Dr. Stephanie Cruz also highlights that due to mustard’s variety, other ingredients can cause harm to dogs.
On excess consumption, vomiting and long-term gastroenteritis arise.
Other symptoms include diarrhea, abdominal pain, and stomach inflammation, which you can’t handle alone.
You’ll need the help of an expert vet, who may see the need to induce vomiting quickly.
Recommendations
If your pups consume any of these foods in excess, stop them immediately from eating more as soon as possible.
They need quick medical attention, so get in touch with the closest licensed vet.
If directed via phone calls to perform any first aid treatments, ensure you follow the steps meticulously.
Red: Poisonous
These are foods that your Beagle must avoid at all costs. They include:
Grapes
Grapes of any kind and form are highly poisonous to dogs, even in small amounts.
Although the exact reason(s) for their toxicity is still in research, numerous practical cases have proven it.
Some initial, noticeable signs of consumption include diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration.
Later, your pups can develop seizures and damaged kidneys, which can eventually cause death.
Especially when your Beagles are still young, ensure they can’t reach any kinds of grapes as their small size makes them more risk-prone.
If they’ve mistakenly eaten some, contact a veterinarian as subsequent symptoms may be fatal.
Your vet may quickly induce vomiting and give prescriptions to nurse them back to health.
Chocolate
As heartbreaking as it sounds for most pet parents, your Beagles cannot have chocolates for any reason.
Chocolates contain a highly poisonous molecule, theobromine, which, unlike humans, doesn’t digest quickly in dogs.
They build up in their system, stirring various health conditions like tremors and seizures.
In severe cases, theobromine can increase blood flow to the brain, which is fatal.
Internal bleeding and irregular heart rate are also common.
Regardless of the type, milk or dark, form, ground, or liquid, they are highly toxic to your furry friend, being a medium-sized one.
However, if you suspect they’ve mistakenly eaten chocolates, take them to your vet immediately.
Don’t wait for any signs.
Foods and Sweets With Xylitol
Many processed foods use xylitol as their primary sweetener to avoid sugar. According to the FDA, these foods can devastate your dog.
Gum, sweets, and mints are the most common sources in recent cases. However, xylitol can also be in:
- Baked goods
- Toothpaste
- Peanut butter
- Cough syrup
- Sugar-free desserts.
Because their pancreas releases high amounts of insulin after consuming xylitol, their blood sugar level rapidly drops.
Within minutes they may experience weakness, seizures, and collapse.
If you notice any of these symptoms after they might have just eaten xylitol, contact your vet quickly.
Alcohol
Your Beagles should never drink alcohol, regardless of the source.
Its toxicity will depend on its concentration level, which is highest in gin and tequila, and lowest in beer.
Naturally, they are not attracted to the highly poisonous ones, but fruit-based drinks and cocktails may spark their interest.
They may exhibit weakness, drool, and vomit when your Beagle has consumed alcohol in high amounts.
Corn Cobs
Plain corn grains are a good source of carbohydrates, protein, and antioxidants for your Beagle.
But served on their cobs, you’d be less concerned about their health benefits.
Your dogs don’t often know when to stop, and they could continue eating the cobs after the grains.
They don’t chew it properly, making it difficult to digest in their stomachs. Eventually, it causes a blockage.
Some clinical signs may include difficulty with stooling, diarrhea, and poor appetite.
So contact a veterinarian immediately if you suspect any of them.
Yeast Dough
If you’re into baking, keep your yeast far from your Beagles, as they are most deadly to them.
When eaten, the yeast in dogs expands rapidly, which triggers bloating, a life-threatening condition.
They require immediate medical attention, especially when you discover signs like:
- A bloated abdomen
- Nausea
- Excessive drooling.
Moreover, yeast ferments into ethanol which your dog’s body can quickly absorb.
Alcohol poisoning can lead to tremors, respiratory disorders, and disorientation in a few hours.
Recommendation
Once you confirm or even suspect your Beagles might have eaten this food, immediately take them to a veterinarian.
Time is of the essence if you suspect your Beagle has consumed these red flag substances.
These foods can cause serious health challenges and even death if not quickly treated.
Conclusion
There are more foods your Beagles must avoid for a healthy lifestyle, but you can start those on this list.
Whenever you doubt the safety of other foods not listed above, make inquiries from your vet.
Remember that your dogs’ lives are potentially at stake, so you shouldn’t take their diet lightly.
Start becoming even more conscious of what they eat today.
References
- FETCH by WebMD: Diabetic Dogs Tips to Manage Their Diet
- National Library of Medicine: Food-induced acute pancreatitis
- Centers For Disease Control and Prevention: Pet Food Safety
- Can I Give My Dog: Read This Before Allowing Your Dog To Have Mustard!
- MAG Online Library: Chocolate toxicity
- U.S. Food & Drug ADMINISTRATION: Paws Off Xylitol; It’s Dangerous for Dogs
- Oxford Academic: The Journal of Nutrition: Intestinal Effects of Mannanoligosaccharides, Transgalactooligosaccharides, Lactose and Lactulose in Dogs
- Oxford Academic: Journal of ANIMAL SCIENCE: Nutritional and physico-chemical implications of avocado meal as a novel dietary fiber source in an extruded canine diet
Click here to read my post on the 10 Common Beagle Health Issues and What to Do About Them
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| Marcelle Landestoy Veterinary Hospital Director at UCE Dr. Marcelle is a general veterinarian with a Small Animal Medicine Specialty | Director of the UCE School of Veterinary Medicine | Certified by the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society |
