Home

About

Greyhound Care

Jack

George

Jerry

Tegan

Buttons

Jet

Mouse

Links

Guestbook

Send e-mail to Fiona

Grape & Raisin Toxicity in Dogs

Although many people are aware that grapes and raisins can be poisonous for their dog, this is actually a difficult topic to find precise data on. There just isn't a lot of verifiable information available on their toxicity in dogs. Part of the problem is that, although vets know they can be toxic (and in some cases even fatal), no one is totally clear about which component of the grapes or raisins makes them so dangerous to our dogs. With things like chocolate we know that it is the theobromine, and if we work out how much theobromine is in a piece of chocolate then we can roughly calculate what a fatal dose is likely to be for a particular size of dog.

Basically, grapes and raisins are poisonous, and problems have been seen with grapes at doses as low as 0.4oz per kilo of body weight. For the average greyhound who weighs around 30 kilos this means they would have to eat around 340 grams of grapes to have some chance of a toxic effect. Raisins are more difficult to quantify, as it is thought that the toxic component is more concentrated, and therefore you may need far less of them to make your dog ill. Some estimates put the amount required to cause irreversible damage to a dog the size of a greyhound at as little as 100 grams of raisins, but there isn't a lot of readily available veterinary evidence for this.

Defining the toxicity of grapes and raisins is made more difficult by many people not knowing exactly how much their dog actually ate before he became ill (or died). Many cases of poisoning occur when a dog helps himself to grapes off a vine in the garden or from a fruit bowl in the house, which means that it is impossible to know just how many he ate to make himself ill. On the other hand, if your dog helps himself to the box of Belgian Truffles on the coffee table you are more likely to have a better idea of just how much chocolate was in the box before he got to it.

On the plus side, it does seem if you know what signs to look out for, then early and aggressive veterinary treatment offers a high chance of saving your dog, even after eating a large amount of grapes or raisins.

On a personal note I don't think there is anything wrong with feeding your dog the odd grape or raisin, however with so many other safe alternatives out there it is probably best to avoid them all together. I actually think the greatest threat is dogs having unsupervised access to grape vines, or large amounts of raisins stored improperly around the home. My dog Jack is a great one for helping himself to fruit and veg off the bush or from the vegetable garden, so for that reason we don't have a grape vine.

For those who wish to find out more here is a link to some dog toxicity information (including grapes.)

Back to Greyhound Care Page