12 Best Whole Foods for Dogs (and How Much to Feed)

Whole foods are unprocessed, single-ingredient foods you can recognize on sight. Adding them to your dog's bowl brings in nutrients in the form the body evolved to handle, along with fiber, water, and plant compounds that survive nothing about the kibble manufacturing process. The twelve worth knowing are carrots, green beans, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, apples, blueberries, eggs, lean muscle meat, liver, small oily fish, bone broth, and functional mushrooms. The rule that keeps it safe is the 10% rule: additions stay at or under 10% of daily calories, and you take those calories out of the base meal rather than adding them on top. Introduce one food at a time over several days. Grapes, raisins, onions, macadamia nuts, and anything containing xylitol never go in the bowl.

What Counts as a Whole Food for Dogs

A whole food is a food in the form it grew in, minus the parts you would not eat. A raw carrot is a whole food. A carrot that has been dried into powder, blended into a slurry, extruded at high heat, and sprayed with a synthetic vitamin premix is not, even though the ingredient panel still says carrot.

That distinction is the entire point. Kibble is cooked at high temperature, usually more than once, and heat is hard on the nutrients that make food worth eating. Vitamin C degrades. Several B vitamins degrade. Amino acids bind to sugars in a reaction that makes them unavailable to the body. Manufacturers know this, which is why complete and balanced kibble carries a synthetic vitamin and mineral premix added after cooking. The premix is there to replace what the process took out.

Adding whole food to the bowl does something the premix cannot. It brings nutrients back in their original packaging, alongside the fiber, water, and plant compounds that came with them.

None of this requires abandoning kibble. Some of the biggest changes we hear about from pet parents come from a dog that still eats the same base food, with a spoonful of something fresh on top. If you are also looking at the ingredient panel itself, we wrote a companion piece on dog food ingredients worth avoiding and another on what fillers actually are.

Why Fresh Food Changes What Your Dog Absorbs

Nutrients do not count until they cross the gut wall. That is the part of this conversation that usually gets skipped.

Take beta-carotene, the orange pigment in carrots and sweet potatoes. Dogs carry the enzyme that splits beta-carotene into vitamin A, and they do it in the intestinal wall as the food passes through. The body converts what it needs and leaves the rest, which is a form of built-in regulation that a preformed vitamin A supplement does not offer. Cats cannot do this at all. They absorb beta-carotene and then do nothing with it, which is why cat food has to supply vitamin A already made.

Fiber is the other half of the story. Whole plant foods carry soluble and insoluble fiber that feeds the bacteria living in the colon. Those bacteria ferment it into short-chain fatty acids, and butyrate, one of those acids, is the preferred fuel of the cells lining the colon. Research comparing dogs on fresh, minimally processed diets against dogs on commercial feed has found measurable differences in the bacterial populations of the gut, which is a reasonable place to look for why the fresh-food group tends to look different in the bowl and on the coat.

A 2022 review in the Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition catalogued what plant ingredients contribute to canine diets beyond calories and protein, and the short version is that the polyphenols, carotenoids, and fermentable fibers in vegetables and fruits do work that isolated vitamins do not replicate. That research is developing rather than settled, and none of it is a guarantee for any individual dog.

The 12 Best Whole Foods for Dogs at a Glance

Amounts scale with body weight and with what else is in the bowl. The section further down on how much fresh food to add explains the math.

1. Carrots

Carrots are the easiest entry point into fresh feeding because almost every dog already accepts them, they cost almost nothing, and a whole medium carrot carries around 25 calories. That last number matters more than it sounds. It means a carrot can replace a training treat without meaningfully changing the day's intake.

The nutrition is mostly about beta-carotene, plus a useful amount of insoluble fiber, potassium, and vitamin K. Carrots also carry a lot of water, which is part of why they work as a filler for dogs on a weight management plan.

Why Beta-Carotene Works Differently in Dogs Than in Cats

The live version of this article said carrots contain vitamin A. They do not. They contain beta-carotene, which the dog's body converts into vitamin A as needed.

That distinction is the argument for the carrot instead of a supplement. Preformed vitamin A is fat-soluble, which means the body stores the excess rather than flushing it, and stored excess is how vitamin A gets into trouble. Beta-carotene conversion is self-limiting. The intestinal enzyme does the work at the rate the body has demand for, and unconverted beta-carotene passes through as an antioxidant compound in its own right.

This is also a genuine species split. Cats absorb beta-carotene and never convert it, which is why the same carrot is a nutritional bonus for a dog and a low-calorie crunch for a cat. If you feed both, this is worth knowing.

How to Serve Carrots

Raw carrot sticks work as a snack and give the jaw something to do. Chopped or steamed carrot mixes into a meal better and is slightly easier on digestion, because cooking softens the cell walls that hold the beta-carotene. Either is fine. Cut coins into halves or quarters for small dogs, since a whole coin is a good shape for getting stuck.

Frozen carrot sticks are worth mentioning for teething puppies and for hot afternoons.

2. Green Beans

Green beans are the quiet workhorse of this list. They are roughly 90% water, they run about 31 calories per 100 grams, and dogs on a weight management plan can eat a real volume of them without the calorie math moving.

A correction to the previous version of this article. It said green beans supply vitamin B12. They do not. No plant does. B12 is made by bacteria and reaches the diet through animal tissue, which is why liver, eggs, and fish carry it and green beans do not.

What green beans actually supply is fiber, folate, vitamin K, vitamin C, manganese, and a modest amount of plant protein. Vitamin K supports normal blood clotting and bone metabolism, and folate is involved in cell division and red blood cell formation. Iron is present but in the non-heme form, which the body absorbs less readily than the heme iron in meat.

Serve them raw, steamed, or boiled, with nothing added. No salt, no butter, no garlic. Canned green beans are usually packed in sodium, so rinse them well or skip them. Frozen plain green beans are the most convenient option and lose almost nothing in the freezing.

3. Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potato is the highest-calorie vegetable on this list at roughly 90 calories per cooked 100 grams, and that is worth respecting. It is a starch, and a spoonful is a serving, not a side dish.

What it brings is beta-carotene at a density that rivals or beats carrots, along with potassium, manganese, vitamin B6, vitamin C, and a mix of soluble and insoluble fiber. The soluble fraction is the part that ferments in the colon and supports normal stool consistency.

Cook it. Raw sweet potato is hard on a dog's digestion, and the starch granules do not open up until heat gets to them. Baking or steaming both work. Mash it, cool it, and mix a tablespoon or two into the meal. Skip the skin for dogs prone to bringing up their food, since the skin is where most of the insoluble fiber sits.

Never add butter, salt, brown sugar, or marshmallow, which should go without saying but does not, every November.

4. Pumpkin

Pumpkin earns its reputation on one compound. Pectin is a soluble fiber that absorbs water and forms a gel, which is why the same tablespoon of pumpkin supports normal stool consistency whether the stool is loose or slow. It is not doing two opposite things. It is doing one thing, which is normalizing water content in the gut.

Pumpkin also runs high in water, low in calories (about 34 per 100 grams for plain canned), and carries beta-carotene, potassium, and vitamin C. Published composition work on Cucurbita species backs up the carotenoid and mineral profile.

Buy canned 100% pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling. Pie filling contains sugar and spices, and nutmeg in particular does not belong in a dog. Check the label every time, because the two cans sit next to each other and look nearly identical.

Start with a teaspoon for a small dog and a tablespoon for a large one. We covered the quantity question in more depth in our guide to feeding pumpkin. Pumpkin is also the base of our Pumpkin Hemp Hearts for Dogs, for anyone who would rather not open a can.

5. Apples

Apples bring pectin, vitamin C, potassium, water, and a set of polyphenols concentrated in the skin, quercetin among them. They are crunchy, most dogs like them, and a few slices cost almost nothing in calories.

The core and the seeds come out. Apple seeds contain amygdalin, which releases cyanide when it is chewed and digested. The amount in a few seeds is small and a dog who swallows one is almost certainly fine, but there is no reason to build a habit around it. The core is also the right size and density to lodge in a small dog's throat.

Green apples, red apples, and yellow apples are nutritionally close enough that the choice does not matter. Applesauce usually contains added sugar and sometimes contains xylitol, which is why the whole fruit is the better answer.

We go deeper on skin, seeds, serving size by dog weight, and whether apples do anything for teeth in our full guide to feeding apples.

6. Blueberries

Blueberries are the most calorie-efficient antioxidant food on this list. Eight or ten berries is a serving for a medium dog, they are already bite-sized, and frozen ones work as a summer treat with no preparation at all.

The compounds worth naming are anthocyanins, the pigments that make the berry blue. They are polyphenols, and they support the body's defense against oxidative stress alongside the vitamin C and manganese that come with them. The fiber content is meaningful for the volume.

Fresh or frozen, both fine. Skip anything labeled blueberry-flavored, which usually means sugar and dye. We have a longer look at what blueberries do for dogs if you want the detail, and organic blueberry powder is one of the three ingredients in our Gut Health Colostrum for exactly this reason.

7. Eggs

An egg is one of the most complete single foods a dog can eat. Complete protein with every essential amino acid, choline for cell membrane structure and normal liver function, biotin, selenium, riboflavin, and vitamin B12 that the vegetables on this list cannot supply.

One large egg is about 72 calories, which for a 50 pound dog is roughly 7% of a day's intake. That puts a whole egg right at the edge of the 10% rule on its own, so a few eggs a week is a better cadence than one a day.

Raw Eggs, Cooked Eggs, and the Biotin Question

Raw egg white contains avidin, a protein that binds biotin and blocks its absorption. This is the objection you will hear to feeding raw eggs, and it is real chemistry. It is also mostly solved by feeding the whole egg, because the yolk carries enough biotin to more than offset what the white ties up. Dogs fed whole raw eggs at normal frequency are not the ones who run into problems. Cooking denatures avidin entirely and settles the question.

The other consideration with raw eggs is bacterial contamination, which is a question about your sourcing and your household rather than about the egg itself. Scrambled or hard-boiled with nothing added is the low-drama option.

Crushed eggshell is a calcium source if you are building homemade meals and know your calcium-to-phosphorus target. If you are topping a complete and balanced kibble, leave the shell out, since the base food already has its calcium sorted.

8. Chicken and Other Lean Muscle Meat

Muscle meat is where dogs get their complete amino acid profile, their heme iron, their B vitamins, and their taurine. Chicken breast is the leanest common option at roughly 165 calories per cooked 100 grams, which makes it useful for dogs on a calorie budget.

Rotate proteins. Feeding one protein for years is how sensitivities develop, and rotation also covers the small nutritional differences between species. Turkey, beef, lamb, rabbit, and pork all have a place. If chicken does not agree with your dog, skip it and move on to the next one, because nothing about chicken is irreplaceable. We compared the common options in our breakdown of protein sources.

Cooked bones are the hard line. Cooking dries out the collagen in bone and changes how it fractures, so a cooked bone splinters into sharp fragments. Raw bone bends and crushes instead. If you feed raw and your dog is used to it, raw poultry bones are part of that model. Cooked chicken bones are not part of any model. Strip the meat and throw the bones out.

Cook it plain. No onion, no garlic powder, no seasoning blend, no pan drippings.

9. Liver and Other Organ Meat

This is the food most often skipped and the one with the highest nutrient density on the entire list. Liver carries preformed vitamin A, copper, iron, folate, choline, riboflavin, and vitamin B12 at concentrations no vegetable comes close to. Heart carries taurine and CoQ10. Kidney carries selenium and B12.

For dogs eating commercial food that skews heavily toward muscle meat, organ meat fills a real gap.

How Much Liver Is Too Much

Liver is the one food on this list where more is genuinely worse, and the reason is the vitamin A. Unlike beta-carotene, the vitamin A in liver is already made, it is fat-soluble, and the body stores what it does not use. Safety work published in the British Journal of Nutrition looked at what happens across a wide range of vitamin A intakes in growing dogs, and the practical takeaway for a pet parent is that liver is a supplement-sized food, not a meal-sized one.

The working guideline used across raw and fresh feeding is that liver stays at or under about 5% of the total diet, with all organ meat combined staying at or under about 10%. For a 50 pound dog on a typical intake, that is a piece of liver roughly the size of a large grape, a few times a week.

Cook it, or buy it freeze-dried in treat form, or feed it raw if that is your feeding model. Beef, chicken, lamb, and pork liver are all usable. Start smaller than you think, because liver is rich and a dog's first encounter with too much of it shows up in the yard within a day.

One naming note, since both meanings live on this site: this section is about feeding liver as a food. If you are looking for what supports your dog's own liver, that is a different article, and it is here.

10. Small Oily Fish

Sardines, anchovies, herring, and mackerel are the best omega-3 sources a pet parent can buy without going near a supplement aisle. EPA and DHA are the two long-chain omega-3s that matter, they support a healthy inflammatory response and normal skin barrier function, and the plant-based omega-3 in flax converts to them so poorly in dogs that it is not a substitute.

Small fish, not big fish. Mercury and other contaminants concentrate as you move up the food chain, so a sardine that lives two years carries a fraction of what a tuna that lives twenty carries. Size is the shortcut. If the fish is small enough to eat whole, it is small enough to be low on the chain.

Canned sardines packed in water with no added salt are the easiest version of this. Drain them, and start with one for a medium dog, two or three times a week. Canned in oil adds calories with no benefit, since the fish already brought its own fat.

A 2022 study in Animals looked at fish oil in the diets of working dogs and tracked lipid and oxidative status markers, which is the kind of measurable outcome that makes the omega-3 case worth taking seriously. As with all of this, the research is developing rather than settled.

If you feed raw fish, freeze it first. Raw Pacific salmon and trout can carry a parasite that is a serious problem for dogs specifically, and freezing for two weeks addresses it. Cooking addresses it too. And watch for bones in cooked fish, since the same rule applies as with poultry.

Rancidity is worth a word. Fish oil in a bottle oxidizes once it is opened, and oxidized oil is worse than no oil. Whole fish does not have that problem, which is the practical argument for the sardine over the softgel.

11. Bone Broth

Bone broth is the most useful topper on this list for the dog who is not enthusiastic about eating. It is mostly water, it is warm, it smells like food, and it turns dry kibble into something with a scent profile.

The nutrition case is real but should be stated honestly. Broth is not a significant protein source by volume, and the collagen in it does not travel to the joints intact. What it does carry is gelatin, glycine, proline, and a small mineral load, along with a lot of moisture. Glycine is one of the three amino acids the body uses to build glutathione, and it is involved in normal collagen synthesis and bile acid formation. Hydration on its own is worth the pour for dogs who do not drink much, for senior dogs, and for dogs eating exclusively dry food.

Make it or buy it, either works, but read the label if you buy it. Onion is in a lot of commercial broths and onion does not belong anywhere near a dog. Salt is the other common problem. What you want is a broth with bones, water, and maybe apple cider vinegar on the panel.

To make it: cover bones with water, add a splash of apple cider vinegar, simmer low for 12 to 24 hours, strain, cool, and skim the fat cap off the top. Pull out every bone before it goes in the bowl. Freeze it in ice cube trays and thaw a cube or two per meal.

Pour a quarter cup over a 50 pound dog's meal. Less for small dogs. It counts toward the daily total, though not by much.

12. Functional Mushrooms

Mushrooms sit in a strange place on a whole-foods list because the interesting compounds are not the ones you get from a raw mushroom on a cutting board.

The nutritional case for culinary mushrooms is decent. B vitamins, selenium, potassium, and a modest amount of protein. The functional case is about beta-glucans, which are polysaccharides in the cell wall that interact with immune receptors in the gut wall, and about triterpenes, which vary by species. Those compounds are locked behind chitin, which is a structural material closer to insect shell than to plant fiber, and a dog cannot break it down. Heat and extraction are what open the cell wall.

That means two practical things. Cook culinary mushrooms if you feed them, because raw mushroom is largely indigestible. And if you are after the immune-supporting compounds specifically, that comes from an extract rather than from a mushroom on the counter.

Never feed wild-foraged mushrooms, and never let a dog eat one in the yard. Species identification is genuinely difficult and several of the dangerous ones look ordinary.

We covered which store-bought mushrooms are safe, which are worth feeding, and how the functional species differ in our full guide to mushrooms and dogs. Earth Buddy's Immunity - Organic Mushrooms for Dogs uses fruiting body only, triple-extracted with hot water, organic cane alcohol, and ultrasound, and freeze-dried after. That extraction step is the whole reason the beta-glucans are available at all.

Better Food Only Counts If the Gut Lining Can Absorb It

Gut Health Colostrum is a powder that goes into the same bowl as everything else on this list.

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A Note on Full Spectrum CBD Oil

Hemp extract is not a whole food in the sense the rest of this list is, but it belongs in the conversation for the same reason the rest of the list does: the value is in what stays intact rather than in what gets isolated.

Full spectrum means the extract carries the whole cannabinoid and terpene profile the plant produced, not a single purified molecule. CBD, CBDa, CBG, CBN, and the terpenes that came with them all end up in the bottle. Those compounds interact with each other, which is the entourage effect, and it is the reason Earth Buddy uses subcritical CO2 extraction. Subcritical runs at a lower temperature than the standard process, and the compounds that survive it are the ones a hotter method drives off.

CBDa is the clearest example. It is the raw, unheated acid form of CBD that exists in the living plant, and heat converts it into CBD. Extracts that run hot arrive with the CBDa already gone. Ours does not.

The carrier is organic MCT oil from coconuts, which is a fat that supports absorption of the cannabinoids and brings its own medium-chain fatty acids to the meal. Start low and increase slowly. Our guide to giving CBD oil covers the three ways to get it into a dog who has opinions about droppers.

How Much Fresh Food to Add to Kibble

This is the question that stops people, and almost nobody answers it.

The 10% Rule

Anything you add on top of a complete and balanced diet stays at or under 10% of your dog's daily calories. The other 90% comes from the base food, which is the part that was formulated to hit every nutrient target.

The reason for the ceiling is dilution. Complete and balanced means the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio, the trace minerals, and the vitamin levels were calculated against a specific calorie intake. Every calorie of carrot that displaces a calorie of that formula moves those ratios. Ten percent is small enough that the movement does not matter. Thirty percent is not.

Worked example. A moderately active 50 pound dog eats somewhere around 900 to 1,000 calories a day, depending on age, metabolism, and how much of the day is spent on the couch. Ten percent of that is 90 to 100 calories. That buys you a quarter cup of chopped carrot, a tablespoon of pumpkin, and a sardine, with room left over. It does not buy you a cup of sweet potato.

If your dog eats a homemade or raw diet you built yourself, this rule does not apply the same way, because there is no premix to dilute. In that case the whole diet is the formulation, and the balancing happens across the week rather than in the bowl. That is a conversation with a qualified pet nutritionist, not a blog post.

Swap Calories, Do Not Stack Them

The most common mistake with fresh feeding is arithmetic. People add a topper and keep the same scoop of kibble, and the dog gains weight over a few months.

Take the calories out. If you are adding 90 calories of fresh food, remove roughly 90 calories of kibble, which for most dry foods is about a quarter cup. Check the bag for calories per cup, because the number ranges from about 300 to over 500 depending on the formula.

Weigh your dog every month or two while you are adjusting. The scale tells you the truth faster than the eye does.

How to Introduce New Foods Without Loose Stool

One food at a time, one small amount, for three to five days before you add the next thing.

There are two reasons. The gut microbiome shifts to match a new substrate and that shift takes a few days, which is why a big change on day one shows up in the yard on day two. And if something does not agree with your dog, one-at-a-time is the only way you will know which thing it was.

Start at half the amount you plan to feed. If stools stay normal for three days, go to the full amount. If they do not, drop that food and try a different one.

Where this post ends and another begins. This article is about foods. If you are looking at powders, oils, and capsules that go in the same bowl, that is a different question and we answered it in our guide to supplements for dog food.

Foods That Never Belong in the Bowl

A whole-foods list is only half useful without the other list.

• Grapes and raisins. The mechanism was identified relatively recently and the sensitivity varies enormously between individual dogs, which means there is no safe amount to work from. Zero.
• Onions, and the rest of the allium family. Onions, shallots, leeks, and chives affect red blood cells in a dose-dependent way, and onion is the strongest of the group. Cooked, raw, powdered, and dehydrated all count, which is why onion powder in a broth or a seasoning blend is the version that catches people out. Garlic is debated in raw feeding circles at very small amounts. If you are considering it, have that conversation with your vet rather than with the internet.
• Macadamia nuts. Dogs specifically react badly to these and nobody has worked out why.
• Xylitol, also labeled birch sugar. It is in sugar-free gum, some peanut butters, some baked goods, and a growing number of dental products. Read peanut butter labels every single time, because formulas change.
• Chocolate, in proportion to how dark it is.
• Alcohol and raw yeast dough, which becomes alcohol in a warm stomach.
• Cooked bones of any kind.

If your dog eats something on this list, call your vet or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435. Do not wait to see whether anything happens.

Tufts University's veterinary nutrition team maintains a plain-language rundown of which human foods are worth feeding and which are not, and it is worth a bookmark.

Better Food Only Pays Off If the Gut Can Absorb It

Everything above assumes the nutrients make it across the gut wall, and that assumption is worth examining.

Absorption happens at the intestinal lining, across a surface of epithelial cells that turn over every few days. Those cells are held together by tight junctions that decide what crosses into the bloodstream and what keeps moving. When that lining is doing its job, the amino acids from an egg and the carotenoids from a carrot get through and larger intact proteins do not. When it is not, the ratio of what gets absorbed changes, and a better diet gets less credit than it earned.

This is why gut support and diet upgrades belong in the same conversation. You can improve the input and still be limited by the interface. If you want the longer version, we wrote about supporting gut health naturally.

Moving to a Whole Food Diet for Dogs

None of this has to happen at once, and the dogs who do best with fresh food are usually the ones whose owners moved slowly.

Pick one food. Feed it for a week. Watch the stool, the coat, the energy, and the enthusiasm at mealtime. Add the next one. In two months you will have a rotation of six or eight foods that your dog handles well and that you can buy without a special trip.

Rotate rather than repeat. Feeding the same three vegetables for a year narrows the nutritional contribution and raises the odds of developing a sensitivity to something. Variety across weeks is the point.

Talk to your veterinarian before you make a real change, particularly if your dog is on a diet your vet put them on, is very young, is pregnant, or has anything going on that a vet is already managing. Fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) accumulate in the body rather than flushing out, which is the specific reason the liver section has a ceiling on it and the carrot section does not.

And measure. Fresh feeding gets away from people through generosity, not through ignorance.

Whole Foods for Dogs: Frequently Asked Questions

What whole foods can I add to my dog's food every day?

Carrots, green beans, pumpkin, and blueberries are all safe daily additions for most dogs, because they are low in calories, low in fat, and easy on digestion. Rotate which ones you use across the week rather than feeding the identical mix every day. Eggs, fish, and liver are better a few times a week than daily, because their calorie and nutrient density is much higher.

How much fresh food can I add to kibble?

Keep additions at or under 10% of your dog's daily calories, and remove an equivalent amount of kibble so the total stays the same. For a 50 pound dog eating around 950 calories a day, that is roughly 95 calories of fresh food, which is about a quarter cup of chopped vegetables plus a small protein addition. Going past 10% starts diluting the vitamin and mineral balance of the complete and balanced base food.

Do I need to cook vegetables for my dog?

It depends on the vegetable. Sweet potato and mushrooms must be cooked, because raw versions are poorly digested. Carrots, green beans, and cucumber are fine raw, though light steaming softens the cell walls and makes some nutrients more available. Fruits go in raw. Whatever you cook, cook it plain, with no salt, butter, oil, onion, or seasoning.

Is bone broth good for dogs?

Bone broth is a good hydration and palatability tool, and it supplies gelatin, glycine, and a small mineral load. It is not a significant protein source and the collagen in it does not reach the joints intact, so it should be judged on what it actually does rather than on the claims around it. Use unsalted broth with no onion, and pour about a quarter cup over a 50 pound dog's meal.

Is liver good for dogs every day?

Liver is excellent for dogs in small amounts and not appropriate daily in large ones. It carries preformed vitamin A, which is fat-soluble and accumulates in the body rather than being flushed out. The working guideline is to keep liver at or under about 5% of the total diet, and all organ meat combined at or under about 10%. For a 50 pound dog that is a piece about the size of a large grape, a few times a week.

Can I feed my dog raw eggs?

Whole raw eggs are generally fine for dogs, because the biotin in the yolk offsets the avidin in the white that would otherwise block biotin absorption. Feeding raw egg whites alone is the version to avoid. The remaining consideration is bacterial contamination, which depends on your egg sourcing. Cooking removes both questions, and scrambled or hard-boiled with nothing added works well.

What foods should never go in my dog's bowl?

Grapes, raisins, onions, shallots, leeks, chives, macadamia nuts, chocolate, alcohol, raw yeast dough, cooked bones, and anything containing xylitol (also labeled birch sugar). Onion powder hidden in broths and seasoning blends and xylitol hidden in sugar-free peanut butter are the two that catch people out most often. If your dog eats any of these, call your vet or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435.

Will adding fresh food unbalance my dog's diet?

Not at 10% or less of daily calories. Complete and balanced commercial diets are formulated against a specific calorie intake, so a small addition shifts the ratios by a small amount that does not matter. The risk appears when fresh food climbs toward a third or half of the bowl without the base diet being reformulated. At that point you are building a homemade diet, and that is work for a board-certified veterinary nutritionist rather than a topper decision.

For further reading, we recommend:

• Your Dog's Nutritional Needs: A Science-Based Guide for Pet Owners (National Research Council)
• Roles of plant-based ingredients and phytonutrients in canine nutrition and health
• Differences in the gut microbiota of dogs fed a natural diet or a commercial feed
• Nutritional requirements of small animals
• Safety evaluation of vitamin A in growing dogs
• Cats absorb beta-carotene but do not convert it to vitamin A
• Nutritional value and phytochemical profile of pumpkin
• The effect of fish oil-based foods on lipid and oxidative status parameters in working dogs
• Harmful versus healthy foods for pets