Gingerbread is a nice holiday tradition for the entire family, and it’s something people might want to share with their pets. But can dogs eat gingerbread safely? The good news is, your dogs can take a bite of gingerbread.
However there are potential problems, and I certainly would not want to feed it to one of my own dogs on purpose.
Can dogs eat gingerbread?
Let’s break down the reasons why gingerbread isn’t a safe holiday treat for pups.
Gingerbread ingredients
Gingerbread is usually made with brown sugar, molasses, ginger, eggs, flour, butter, and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
Most of those ingredients won’t bother your dog. Ginger has even been considered beneficial to dogs and is used as an alternative anti-inflammatory in some cases of arthritis. Gingerbread, unfortunately, also contains several other things that can annoy or even be toxic to your dog if given in excess.
Nutmeg
The most dangerous of those ingredients is nutmeg, which is a mild toxin to dogs and, in high levels, can cause vomiting and diarrhea. Some sites will claim that this can even cause seizures and death, but this is unlikely unless the dog consumes pure nutmeg or eats some whole nutmeg seeds.
The toxin found in nutmeg is called myristicin, and there are no reports on the actual toxic dose in dogs.
Cloves
Cloves are mildly toxic, but a dog would have to eat a large number of them to be a problem. The only cases I know of were secondary to clove oil, where the toxin eugenol is concentrated.
Butter
The next ingredient that could cause problems is just the butter. For most dogs, the amount of butter in gingerbread would not even be an issue, but if your dog is obese, a female, or a Miniature Schnauzer or one of the other breeds prone to pancreatitis, she may have a problem.
The symptoms of pancreatitis are:
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Painful abdomen: This is what is noticed first.
- Loss of appetite
- Lethargy: Reluctance to move around.
- Fever
- Dehydration: This is seen after she has been vomiting a lot.
These symptoms are similar to those from a nutmeg overdose.
Brown sugar
The last normal ingredient I would worry about is the brown sugar. Brown sugar is not toxic, but in excess, sugar causes a glucose spike and may contribute to the development of diabetes. Over a third of dogs with diabetes have pancreatitis too, so the combination of these two foods may cause more problems.
Want to avoid vomiting and diarrhea? Avoid the gingerbread.
Are gingerbread poisoning cases common?
I do not want to give you the impression that this is a common problem that you need to worry about. Even pure nutmeg is only a mild toxin that rarely causes problems.
In humans, where there are nutmeg poisoning cases every year caused by teenagers taking a huge amount trying to achieve the hallucinogenic effects, a 10-year review found that the effects were only mild (1). No one died, no one suffered severe effects, and as far as I know, no one enjoyed it. The only time a fatality was even recorded was when the patient also took Rohypnol at the same time.
A commonly cited source claims that a tablespoon of nutmeg powder can be toxic for your dog. That may be true, but then again, it may not. No one has done any research on the toxic dose in dogs, although the lethal dose has been reported at 5 grams per kilogram. At that level of toxicity, your dog would need to take two full teaspoons for every 2.2 pounds. That would never happen from eating gingerbread.
Nutmeg toxicity is just something we can easily avoid by not feeding gingerbread, pumpkin pie, or anything with nutmeg added.
Don’t offer gingerbread, but don’t worry if a small amount gets eaten
Because of the ingredients, I would not recommend that you feed your dog gingerbread. If you drop a cookie and your average-sized dog eats it off the ground, it is nothing to worry about. Like chocolate, however, it is dose-dependent, so if you have a very small dog, or even a medium-sized dog, and he or she eats an entire gingerbread house, there might be problems.
If your dog does consume a lot of gingerbread, be sure to call your local veterinarian. If you do not have a veterinarian available, you can call a poison control center, but there are no exact rules on treating dogs after gingerbread consumption.
If your dog gets sick, I would be much more worried about pancreatitis, which does need supportive care, so if you have any doubts, have your dog examined.
Frequently Asked Questions
My dog ate some gingerbread, so should I make him vomit?
No, inducing vomiting in dogs is not a good idea in this case. Your dog might end up aspirating some of the vomit and becoming even sicker.
My dog ate some gingerbread, so what should I look for?
Unless it was a huge amount, your dog may just have an upset stomach and not want to eat his dinner, or he may be a little more quiet than usual and lie in the corner or under the table. If the amount was larger, he might vomit or have loose stools when you take him out for a walk.
If you have a very small dog and he ate an entire gingerbread town, you might see disorientation, and he might even have seizures. This is unlikely, but if you notice signs of disorientation, your dog needs medical attention.
Source
- Ehrenpreis JE, DesLauriers C, Lank P, Armstrong PK, Leikin JB. Nutmeg poisonings: a retrospective review of 10 years experience from the Illinois Poison Center, 2001-2011. J Med Toxicol. 2014 Jun;10(2):148-51. doi: 10.1007/s13181-013-0379-7. PMID: 24452991; PMCID: PMC4057546. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4057546/
