If you’ve ever wondered whether your furry friend can eat cheese pizza, it’s time to get the answer! We’ll be covering what exactly cheese pizza is made of, why dogs should avoid it, and how to determine if your pet will react negatively to this dish.
The answer to “Can dogs eat cheese pizza?” is No. While most dogs would love a slice of pizza, it is just not a good meal choice for them due to its low nutritional content and potential side effects. When given individually in a fresh form, certain of the nutrients in the pizza may be useful to your dog’s health; however, the majority of the toppings are not beneficial to your dog’s health and may even be dangerous. Aside from the lack of nutritional value, pizza is also high in sodium. Even if your dog does tolerate a little amount of pizza, it’s best to avoid it.
4 Ingredients To Watch Out For
You need to be aware and careful of the ingredients used in preparing pizza. Here’s a list of the most common ingredients used in pizza that you should be very careful when feeding to your dog:
1. Pizza crust:
Carbohydrates and sodium are the only things your canine gets from eating the crust. Pizza crust’s high carbohydrate content may cause your dog to become drowsy after eating it. In addition, the high salt level can disrupt their stomach. A small piece of pizza crust isn’t potentially toxic, but eating uncooked pizza dough is a different story. If your dog ate some of your uncooked homemade pizza, take them to a veterinarian right away. Knowing that the crust has no nutrition, giving it to your dog seems pointless.
2. Onion and Garlic:
Onion and garlic add rich flavor to pizza and make it more delicious. But, what we humans find delicious can be extremely poisonous to our furry friends. One medium to large onion can have harmful effects on dogs and cause poisoning. Both these vegetables are known as toxins to dogs. They are part of the allium family, contain thiosulfate, and cause irreparable oxidative damage to red blood cells, and can give dogs amnesia. This means that their red blood cells can’t carry oxygen around their bodies. This can result in lethargy, panting, dark-colored urine, weakness, and jaundice. So, it is best to avoid these vegetables.
3. Cheese:
Cheese isn’t the best thing for your pup. While certain cheeses are safe to eat, some might be harmful. Even though cheese contains less lactose than whole milk, dogs with lactose intolerances may have an unfavorable reaction. Cheese can be high in fat too. Lower fat kinds, such as mozzarella, are less harmful, but dogs should still only eat limited amounts of these. You might expect your dog to have digestive problems if they eat a large amount of cheese. They may vomit or suffer from diarrhea, necessitating frequent excursions outside.
4. Pizza sauce:
Pizza sauces are a mixture of tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt. Tomatoes are good but other ingredients like herbs, sodium, and added sugar can be harmful to your pup. High sodium content is not safe for dogs to ingest. It can cause immediate gastrointestinal issues, and further health concerns, like high blood pressure and heart disease. Lots of pizza sauce contain onion and garlic which we already know are bad for your furry friend’s health. Overall, pizza sauce and dogs aren’t a good match.
What Should I Do If My Dog Eats Pizza?
If your pooch has sneaked some pizza, you must act swiftly to ensure that your dog receives the care they require. First, take a look at how much pizza they ate and what ingredients were on it. If your dog ate a small slice of pizza, there’s probably no need to be concerned because the amount of pizza consumed is unlikely to create toxicity or serious consequences on its own. If your dog, on the other hand, devoured a large pizza slice, call your vet immediately. Also, make sure you don’t leave any pizza leftovers in places where your dog can readily reach, sniff, and consume whatever they discover, such as your garbage bin.
Homemade Pizza-Flavored Dog Treat Recipe
The safest and the healthiest way for your pooch to enjoy pizza is by feeding them homemade ones. This way you can avoid all the harmful ingredients of the food. You can handpick ingredients and make an occasional special treat.
Here’s a recipe from How to train your dog for your dog:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of wheat or spelled flour.
- A few slices of fresh mozzarella.
- 1/3 cup of white flour.
- 1 pinch of basil.
- 1/4 cup of water.
- 1 pinch of sundried tomatoes.
Directions
- Preheat your oven up to a temperature of 375-degrees Fahrenheit.
- Chop the sundried tomatoes, basil, and cheese into tiny pieces, then set them aside.
- Combine the different types of flour in a bowl and stir in the chopped pieces, as well as mozzarella.
- Pour in water and stir till the mixture forms a dry sticky dough. You can add water and flour as required, till you achieve this consistency.
- Flatten the dough by use of a rolling pin, then cut it into circular pieces with a glass rim.
- Using a knife, make indents in the circles so that the pieces resemble real pizza slices.
- Transfer the pieces to a cookie sheet and bake for roughly 20 minutes, or till they’re slightly brown.
- Allow the crusts to cool down before serving it to your dog.
Conclusion
Overall, you should never feed cheese pizza to your dog. While they may appreciate the taste, the danger of problems is not worth it. If you want to feed pizza to your dog, bake a healthy version of this treat at home without using things that can harm your pup.
Thank you for reading the article.
Here are some other cheese-related dog articles that you might be interested in.
Has your dog ever eaten cheese pizza? What was their reaction like? If you have any experience with dogs eating pizza, please share it in the comments section below.