Genuinely dangerous, every time
These cause real toxicity in dogs and are worth being strict about rather than judging case by case. In several of them the dangerous dose is much smaller than people assume, and in at least one — grapes — nobody has yet established a reliable safe threshold at all.
| Food | Why it's dangerous | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Chocolate | Theobromine, which dogs clear far more slowly than we do. Dark and baking chocolate are the worst; white is negligible. | Call with the type, weight and your dog's weight |
| Grapes, raisins, sultanas, currants | Linked to acute kidney failure. No reliably safe amount has been established, and sensitivity varies between dogs. | Call immediately, even for a small amount |
| Xylitol / birch sugar | Triggers a rapid, dangerous insulin release, and can cause liver injury. Very small amounts matter. | Treat as an emergency |
| Onion, garlic, leek, chive | Damages red blood cells. Cumulative, and cooked or powdered forms count — including in gravy and stock. | Call if more than a taste |
| Alcohol | Affects dogs far more severely than people, including in raw dough and fermenting fruit. | Call immediately |
| Macadamia nuts | Cause weakness, tremors and hyperthermia, typically within 12 hours. | Call for advice |
| Raw yeast dough | Expands in the stomach and ferments into alcohol — a double problem. | Treat as an emergency |
The first ten minutes
If your dog eats something on the list above, call before symptoms appear. For several of these, treatment is dramatically more effective when started early — waiting to see whether your dog seems unwell removes the window in which the simplest interventions work.
Take the food away and secure the rest
Stop the amount from getting larger while you deal with what's already been eaten.
Work out the three numbers
What it was, roughly how much, and how long ago. Keep the packaging — the exact product and concentration change the advice.
Call your vet or a poison line now
Your own practice, an out-of-hours emergency clinic, or a dedicated service such as Pet Poison Helpline. These lines exist precisely for this call.
Do not induce vomiting unless told to
For caustic substances and for anything that could be inhaled, making a dog vomit causes a second, worse injury. Home remedies including salt water are genuinely dangerous. Wait for professional instruction.
Write down what you're told
If you end up at a different clinic later, the timeline and advice you were given are exactly what they'll ask for.
Unnecessary, but not an emergency
Plenty of human foods aren't toxic but also aren't good ideas as a habit. Fatty table scraps are a common trigger for pancreatitis flare-ups, particularly around holidays when rich food is more available — a small amount occasionally is unlikely to cause harm, but a nightly routine of leftovers is a different proposition.
Cooked bones are worth a specific mention because the advice is counterintuitive: cooking makes bones brittle and prone to splintering, so cooked bones are more dangerous than raw ones, not less. Corn cobs deserve the same caution — they don't break down and are a classic cause of intestinal obstruction.
Dairy sits in a similar grey area. Many adult dogs are relatively lactose intolerant, so cheese and milk tend to cause loose stools rather than toxicity. Not dangerous, just unhelpful — and cheese in particular is calorie-dense enough to quietly undo careful portioning, as covered in our feeding schedule guide.
- Fatty trimmings, skin and gravy — pancreatitis risk, especially in predisposed breeds
- Cooked bones of any kind — splinter risk
- Corn cobs — a common obstruction
- Salty snacks — easy to overdo in a small dog
- Cheese and milk — usually just loose stools, plus a lot of calories
- Stone fruit pits — both an obstruction and a cyanide risk if crushed
What's actually fine in small amounts
It is worth knowing this list too, because a constant sense that all human food is dangerous makes for anxious owners and a lot of unnecessary calls. Plain cooked chicken or turkey without skin, bones or seasoning, plain cooked rice, plain pumpkin purée, carrot, green beans, cucumber, blueberries and plain apple without the core are all commonly used as low-value training treats or bland-diet ingredients.
The important words in that paragraph are 'plain' and 'small'. Seasoning is where the risk usually enters — onion and garlic powder are in far more savoury cooking than people realise — and none of these are nutritionally complete, so they supplement a proper diet rather than replacing part of one.