What Can Dogs Eat? Safe Home Foods and What to Avoid

Dogs can safely eat a good number of everyday foods from a Saudi kitchen, as long as they are plain: cooked without salt, onion, garlic, spices or oil. The problem is rarely the ingredient itself. It is what we cook it with.

Two rules cover most situations. First, home foods should be extras, not the whole diet, unless you are following a properly balanced recipe. Second, all treats and extras together should stay around 10% of your dog’s daily calories. The other 90% should come from a complete meal.

Some foods that are harmless to us are genuinely dangerous to dogs. Keep these out of reach:

• Grapes and raisins: linked to kidney failure, even in small amounts.
• Onion and garlic in any form, including powder: damage red blood cells.
• Chocolate, coffee and tea: contain stimulants dogs cannot process.
• Xylitol: a sweetener in sugar-free gum, sweets and some peanut butters. Very small amounts can be life-threatening.
• Cooked bones: splinter and can injure the mouth, throat or gut.
• Avocado and macadamia nuts.
• Date pits and fruit stones, which can cause a blockage.

If your dog eats any of these, call your vet straight away rather than waiting for symptoms.

Kabsa, mandi, saleeg and most family dishes are cooked with onion, garlic, salt, spices and plenty of fat. Even when the meat and rice look plain, they have absorbed all of it. Leftovers from the table are one of the most common reasons dogs end up with an upset stomach, and rich fatty food can trigger pancreatitis.

If you want to share, set aside a piece of meat and a little rice before anything is added to the pot.

Dates are a common question in Saudi homes. A pitted date now and then is not toxic, but dates are very high in sugar, so keep it to an occasional small piece and never give the pit.

Chicken feet are one of the best-loved natural chews for dogs. Dried chicken feet are high in protein (around 55%) and are a natural source of the cartilage, collagen and glucosamine found in joints. Chewing them also gives dogs a satisfying job to do.

• Dried or dehydrated, not cooked. Dehydrated chicken feet stay crunchy and are made to be chewed. Cooked (boiled or roasted) chicken feet have brittle bones that can splinter.
• Adult dogs only. Not for young puppies.
• Supervise. Especially the first few times, and choose a size your dog cannot swallow whole.
• Count them as treats. They are calorie-dense (about 335 kcal per 100 g), so they belong inside the 10% treat allowance.

Cooking for your dog full-time is possible, but it is harder than it looks. A bowl of chicken and rice is a good short-term bland meal for an upset stomach, but over weeks it falls short on calcium, essential fats, vitamins and minerals. A complete homemade diet needs a balanced recipe, ideally checked by a vet nutritionist.

If you want to try, our homemade dog food recipe guide walks through what a balanced bowl needs. If you would rather have home-cooked food without the measuring, that is exactly what fresh dog food is: real meat and vegetables, gently cooked and portioned for your dog. You can see every ingredient we use on our ingredients page.

Plain chicken, meat, fish, eggs, rice and most vegetables are safe extras for dogs. Seasoned family food, cooked bones, grapes, onion, garlic, chocolate and xylitol are not. Keep extras to about 10% of the day’s calories, and let a complete meal do the rest.

Soluky makes fresh dog food in Saudi Arabia from the same real ingredients you would cook at home, without the salt, onion and spices, plus natural treats like dried chicken feet and slow-simmered bone broth.