Yesterday was National Pet Day and it brought to mind an idea that a contact in my network came up with; namely, why aren’t there more snacks that we humans can eat and that we can share with our beloved pets?  This idea struck a cord with me because our home is dominated by a lovely 2-year rescue dog named Sadie. We keep Sadie to a strict dry dog cereal diet and do not offer her any “people” scraps, but it would be kind of fun if there was a snack we could both enjoy together.

From there my mind of course leaped to “and why couldn’t that snack be pretzels?!”  It would be a bit hit — what a great idea. Right? Wrong!  Bad Idea!

It didn’t take a very long google search to discover that pretzels would be one of the worst things you could feed your pet.  Why?  Sodium!  I had no idea but dogs are very vulnerable to excess sodium and too much is toxic and potentially fatal for them. I’m glad I checked before I spent too much time on by “great” idea and, more importantly, before I fed any pretzels to Sadie.

This was a good lesson for me and probably for others. Just because a product seems innocuous and safe for us (and what is more innocuous than a pretzel?) we still should not assume it is safe for our pets.  Always do some research before straying too far from your pet’s prescribed diet (and keep them away from pretzels!).

 

 

This is Sadie!