Garlic in Dog food. What is the purpose?

Question

I see that most dog food recipes mention of garlic powder. Do dogs like it or there is any other purpose behind this addition? Do dogs eat raw garlic?

Answer 1

1. Keeps dogs from having worms and gets rid of worms that are there.

2. Helps keep fleas and ticks off dogs by getting into the dog's system and creating
a garlic odor that fleas and ticks detect and avoid the dog altogether.
(Don't worry, your dog won't smell like garlic. Humans can't detect
the garlic odor on the dog but the insects sure will!)

3. Helps reduce dog's cholesterol level for good heart function.


I put a little garlic in my dogs food for number 3; I use a flea/tick control already, but I you can never be too safe! Plus my dogs love it! My dogs eat twice a day, so I only put garlic in their food in the morning.

Hope that helped!

Answer 2

(Taken from a website)

For dogs it:
1. Keeps dogs from having worms and gets rid of worms that are there.
2. Helps keep fleas and ticks off dogs by getting into the dog's system and creating
a garlic odor that fleas and ticks detect and avoid the dog altogether.
(Don't worry, your dog won't smell like garlic. Humans can't detect
the garlic odor on the dog but the insects sure will!)
3. Helps reduce dog's cholesterol level for good heart function.
In muy opinion I would use a topical flea drops to get rid of fleas and get to the vet to get your puppy dewormed, and feeda high quality dry dog food for heart health, and not Garlic for these as it is poisonous to dogs.

(taken from another website that lists poisonous foods to dogs which includes Garlic but small amounts are ok if needed)

Onions and garlic both contain the toxic ingredient thiosulphate. Of the two, however, onions are the most dangerous. The chemical thiosulphate can cause potentially fatal hemolytic (or heinz factor) anemia in dogs and cats. This results in the pet’s red blood cells bursting while actually circulating throughout its body.

Onion poisoning can occur with only one single ingestion of a large quantity of onion laced foods or with repeated meals containing small amounts of onion. It seems that garlic is less toxic overall and larger amounts of garlic would need to be eaten to cause illness.

Many holistic veterinarians often recommend small amounts of garlic for pets. But more than one small clove of garlic per 20 pounds of body weight per day, or regular doses of onions in any amount per day, can cause circulating red blood cells to burst.

Any form of onion could potentially be a problem including: cooked onions and table scraps containing cooked onions, dehydrated onions, raw onions, and/or garlic.

Pets affected by onion poisoning show gastroenteritis (with vomiting and diarrhea). Later on they will become breathless because the red blood cells that carry oxygen through the body are less in number.

The best thing a dog owner can do to reduce risk of poisoning from any of these poisonous foods is to keep these foods away from your pets in all it's forms in the first place.

See a link to a list of bad foods for dogs below.

Answer 3

No don't feed them garlic you can get garlic pills at the pet store it is rumored to keep fleas away but I tried it and it did nothing at all

Answer 4

Garlic is brilliant for keeping away ticks and fleas

Answer 5

Probably for flavor, but it is also reputed to minimize fleas.

Answer 6

holistic approach to flea preventative... doesn't work