Can Dogs Eat Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes Safely

Pet owners love to share things with their furry friends — time, blankets, toys… even food! We often have pet parents come into our dog daycare and ask us how safe it is to bond with their dog over a yummy chunk of human food. After all, most dogs enjoy eating just about anything!

Sharing occasional bites of human food with your drooling friend can leave you with a good, warm feeling. Just be sure to educate yourself about which foods are safe for canines, and which are not. Being too careless could leave your four-legged friend in a significant amount of discomfort, and could result in an emergency trip to the vet.

One food we commonly eat, and might consider sharing with our dogs, is potatoes. Do not feed your dog raw potatoes, or any part of the plant other than the tuber (avoid stalks, leaves, etc.). Raw potatoes and their plants contain a defensive poison called solanine that can adversely affect the nervous system of any mammal, if enough is consumed.

Dogs can safely consume a few bites of plain, cooked regular potato or sweet potato. Please only feed these to your dog fully cooked, unseasoned, and in small quantities. Dogs derive the same nutritional benefits from potatoes that we do: potassium, carbohydrates, and vitamins B and C (and A, in the case of sweet potatoes). However dogs, being obligate carnivores, do not require the same carbohydrate intake as humans so they should only have a small serving.

Please do not share French fries, potato chips, or loaded baked potatoes with your dog. These human foods often contain high amounts of sodium, oil, and other ingredients that will cause digestive upset to dogs.

We are happy to help spread the knowledge from our dog daycare to your home. Happy sharing!