It's no secret that dogs love peanut butter. However, there's an ingredient hidden in some peanut butters that is toxic to dogs. Dr. Heather Kovac from The Drake Center shares some important info on this ingredient and how to determine which peanut butter is safe for your pup.

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But we did want you to be aware that there are a few peanut butters out there that have a no-no ingredient. It's called xylitol, and it's an artificial sweetener that's safe for people, but it's quite toxic to dogs.

Video Transcript:

Hi guys, it's Dr. Kovac at the Drake Center, and I just wanted to talk to you today about peanut butter and dogs. We all know dogs love peanut butter, there's no secret there. For some reason it's a really yummy taste for them, a very good texture for them, so it's a fun treat.

But we did want you to be aware that there are a few peanut butters out there that have a no-no ingredient. It's called xylitol, and it's an artificial sweetener that's safe for people, but it's quite toxic to dogs. Even just a small amount of this artificial sweetener can cause severe problems in dogs, so we just wanted to educate you and let you know that, go ahead and use peanut butter, but for sure read the label before you do that.

It's actually pretty tricky to find the peanut butter that contains a xylitol, we were looking yesterday, and I only found it online. So, if you're going to the store, and you're just buying a store brand or some of the major brands, like Jif or Skippy that we have here, totally safe. But its the more exotic brands, or a diet type of food, they might say high protein or have some other ingredients. Just read the label. If you see the word xylitol, then you do not wanna give that to your dog.

We'll have you the spelling, 'cause it's kind of a weird word. We'll have the spelling for you, too. Starts with an X. So, anyway, dogs can eat peanut butter, we've never had a dog have an allergy to peanut butter, there's no documentation of that anywhere in the veterinary literature. So, go ahead and treat your dogs, they love it. Obviously don't go too crazy, but let 'em have some fun.

We love to have it, put it in the little Kong so they can lick it out, it's a fun way to do that, kind of occupies their time. You can even put a little bit in a Kong and then put the Kong with the peanut butter in the freezer so that it lasts a little bit longer when they take it out. It's fun for puppies 'cause we know they, we need to keep them busy.

So, go ahead and have some fun with your dogs with peanut butter, you'll see, they'll love it.