Luckily, if your dog snacks on a biscuit will not hurt them, if your dog likes to eat plain biscuits from time to time, then that is fine so long as it’s in moderation.
Be aware that some dogs with a grain allergy can cause uncomfortable symptoms such as itchy-red skin, and ear infections.
Even though humans have been consuming biscuits since what seems like the dawn of time, you should be wary of which kinds you’re feeding your dog because there are many ingredients in biscuits that can be quite harmful to dogs.
Avoid biscuits with chocolate, added sugar, and a lot of salt.
What are the main ingredients in biscuits?
The main ingredients in biscuits are flour which gives protein and contains calcium, iron, niacin, and thiamine.
Vegetable oil extract from the Palm plant.
Wholemeal wheat is rich in vitamins B-1, B-3 vitamins, B-5, and riboflavin folate.
It also has way more nutritional value than regular flour, such as iron, calcium, and protein. All of these are good for dogs and beneficial for their health.
A cube of inverted sugar is a mixture of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose: salt and a raising agent (sodium bicarbonate).
Biscuits are an excellent snack for any time of the day.
It also helps to keep your dogs happy and playful; it even helps keep down the tartar on their teeth.
Many different types of biscuits are also made in different ways. For example, some biscuits are made with oatmeal.
They can be sweet, crunchy, soft, and coated in chocolate. The word Biscuit is French for (bis-qui). The term also has Latin roots referring to bread cooked twice.
What are the five or six ingredients that tend to be in all biscuits?
- Soy milk
- Wheat flour
- Wheat starch
- Baking soda
- Skim milk
- Glucose syrup
Are any of these ingredients toxic to dogs?
- If a dog consumes too much sugar, it can be quite harmful to its health. The dog will then develop teeth problems, become overweight, and this can lead to diabetes.
- Dogs cannot synthesize linoleic acid (LA): the primary fatty acid found in vegetable oil, soybean oil, corn oil, and rapeseed oil.
- Dogs that have pre-existing health conditions like kidney, liver, and heart disease. Healthy dogs can only have a low amount of salt. However, salt isn’t bad for dogs in good health; a little bit goes a long way, the same as humans.
- Small amounts of raisins can have fatal effects on a dog’s health, leading to anorexia, vomiting, diarrhea, and possibly acute renal failure. In addition, they develop severe and acute kidney failure. It is unknown why currants are so toxic to dogs.
- Baking soda isn’t bad for dogs in small amounts. However, if your dog ingests large amounts of baking soda, it can be quite toxic for them. The first sign that your dog has consumed too much baking soda is vomiting, diarrhea, disorientation, shortness of breath, seizures, and depression.
Biscuits vs. cookies. What is the difference?
Cookies are a-thin-sweet-treat sort of like a tiny slice of cake in your mouth. The texture can sometimes vary from soft to crunchy.
Cookies are made with soft dough and loaded with extra toppings like chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, oats, and much more.
Biscuits are hard sweet or sometimes not so sweet bread; it has a shape with a crunchy texture. Biscuits tend to have the same combination of ingredients like sugar, butter, milk, and a rising agent.
There are just way more added ingredients in cookies than biscuits. Therefore, I would not recommend feeding your dog cookies at all.
Mostly they will have way more sugar in it, and although dogs love sweet snacks, too much isn’t good for them.
Amazon’s top number 1 best-selling cookies are called Original, Golden, Chips, OHOY! & Nutter Butter variety pack of 56, and each parcel contains two cookies.
Many of the ingredients in cookies are the same as biscuits.
However, depending on the type of cookie, there could be added indigents like oatmeal cookies or peanut butter cookies, which are suitable for dogs.
In addition, most of the ingredients contain corn syrup and are unhealthy.
Homemade or shop bought dog biscuits
You can, however, put your creative skills to the test and make homemade biscuits using pumpkin, peanut butter (natural), oat milk, and milk.
Also, plain flour or all-purpose flour is fine for dogs as well. Another alternative is checking out some popular brands of biscuit treats.
- Pumpkin biscuit by Portland Pet Food Company is perfect for dogs with a wheat or grain allergy. It’s grain-free and gluten-free. A light and crunchy treat without any artificial flavoring and not to mention pumpkin for a dog’s digestive system.
- Old Mother Hubbard – this treat comes in tiny size and is suitable for training your dog. Old Mother Hubbard Biscuits are oven-baked, crunchy, bite-sized snacks made with wholewheat and oatmeal perfect for dogs.
- Milk- Bone original is excellent for dogs and has 20 calories per biscuit.
Why chocolate biscuits an dangerous for dogs…
Chocolate contains a chemical compound called theobromine.
Theobromine is a compound that exists in cocoa beans.
There is approximately 25 mg of chocolate, milk chocolate contains 44- 64 mg, and dark chocolate contains 150- 160 mg.
Unfortunately, chocolate or cocoa is highly toxic for dogs; a dog’s body can not metabolize theobromine.
Most chocolate biscuits don’t contain enough cocoa to poison a medium or large dog (and by this I mean a dog that weighs 50 lbs -25 kgs- or more.)
However, they can contain enough cocoa to poison smaller dogs.
To understand this more, let’s look at two sorts of chocolate biscuit.
Two famous chocolate biscuits
Two of the most famous chocolate biscuits are Oreos and chocolate bourbons (such as Britannia.)
Chocolate bourbons (such as those made by Brittania) contain around 2% of cocoa powder.
In a packet of biscuits weighing about 400 g, the amount of cocoa powder is about 8 g.
Now lets look what happens when a dog eats a whole packet.
For a medium sized dog (25 kg to 40 kg) eating this amount of chocolate biscuits will probably only lead to an upset stomach and won’t poison them.
But for a smaller dog (weighing anything up to 24 lbs or 12 kgs) this may well poison them and should be treated as an emergency.
Oreo cookies have a much higher cocoa content .
It is thought that they have up to 84 mg of theobromine in every kilogram of biscuit- which is enough to poison even large dogs.
Which type of chocolate is more dangerous for a dog?
Dark chocolate is by far the most dangerous to dogs because it contains the most theobromine. Pure dark chocolate contains 130 -450 mg per ounce of theobromine.
Not just dark chocolate but all types of chocolate such as cocoa powder, milk chocolate, and baked chocolate are all harmful to dogs.
What are the signs of chocolate poisoning in dogs?
The symptoms of chocolate poisoning in dogs depend solely on how much or how little chocolate they’ve ingested.
The most common signs that a dog has eaten too much chocolate are breathing hard, vomiting, excessive urination, rapid heartbeat, extreme thirst, muscle tremors, and seizures.
Other complications may include developing pneumonia. The signs of chocolate poisoning can take hours to develop, and theobromine will stay in the bloodstream for a while.
Can dogs eat biscuit dough?
Biscuit dough can also be very dangerous to dogs if it contains a leavening agent (or something that makes the biscuit “puff up” or rise) such as baking powder.
If a dog eats a batch of biscuit dough (and why wouldn’t they because I love licking out the bowl from the leftover mixture) once it enters their nice warm stomach, it will expand.
Now, depending on the size of the dog, the amount of dough that they have eaten and the amount of baking powder in the mix will decide how bloated your dog’s stomach might be.
And if their stomach becomes too bloated, this is something that can kill a dog.
Resources
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/linoleic/linv.htm
