Xylitol & Dogs: Poisoning, Symptoms, & Common Foods with Xylitol

While many people know grapes and chocolate are dangerous for dogs, did you know xylitol is poisonous for dogs too?!

The artificial sweetener xylitol can cause major health problems, including death if ingested by a dog.

So, in this article, we’re gonna dive into all things xylitol and pups so you can keep your good boy or girl safe!

DISCLAIMER: If you believe your dog has ingested something with xylitol, call your vet or a pet poison control hotline immediately.

Here’s what we will cover:

-What is xylitol

-Why is xylitol poisonous and toxic for dogs

-Symptoms of xylitol poisoning

-What foods contain xylitol

-How to keep your dog safe from xylitol

While xylitol is touted for its oral benefits and low-calorie sweetness for humans, it is extremely dangerous for dogs.

Xylitol causes a sharp increase in insulin that can lead to hypoglycemia (too low blood sugar). If left untreated hypoglycemia can become fatal to a dog.

Recently, researchers and professionals have found that xylitol can also cause liver failure (hepatic failure).

In dogs, other complications that can arise from xylitol ingestion are hypokalemia (low potassium levels) and hypophosphatemia (low phosphorous levels).

Based on experience at the ASPCA APCC, dogs ingesting greater than 0.1 g/kg of xylitol should be considered at risk for developing hypoglycemia. In comparison, doses greater than 0.5 g/kg may be hepatotoxic (toxic to the liver) and more than likely cause death. 

So of course you are probably wondering how to calculate those numbers…

Well, it can be difficult. Many products do not explicitly list the amount of xylitol in their product, but let’s show a rough example.

Chewing gum typically contains about 0.22-1.0 grams of xylitol per piece!

In this sample calculation, I’ll use my Labrador Retriever Scout. She weighs about 65 lbs or about 30 kg.

So 0.1 g/kg would be about 3 grams of xylitol. To find the g/kg level that can lead to hypoglycemia, just take your dog’s weight in kilograms and multiply by 0.1

If 1 stick of gum is anywhere from 0.22-1 gram, just 3 sticks of gum could cause our very large dog to develop severe complications.

And anything above that could quickly lead to liver failure and death.

Here are some symptoms of xylitol poisoning in dogs:

-Decreased movement

-Lethargy

-Vomiting

-Weakness

-Staggering

-Incoordination

-Collapsing

-Seizures

COMMON FOODS THAT CONTAIN XYLITOL

-Sugar-free gum, Ice Breakers have been said to contain more xylitol than others.

-Peanut butter

-Nut butter

-Mouthwash

-Toothpaste

-Pudding

-Syrups

-Jams

-Chocolate

-Chewable multivitamins

-Nasal sprays

-Personal lubricants

-Sugar-free mints

-Sugar-free candy

Above all, keep xylitol-type products out of reach of your dog. If your dog ingests anything with xylitol immediately call your vet and/or pet poison hotline.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is the perfect pup podcast.Helping you build a better
relationship with your pup presented by pop furred.
Hello, pop parents and welcome to today's episode of the
perfect pup podcast. My name is Devin, we're doing an
episode. That is almost a public service
announcement. Hopefully this gets shared to a
lot of people because it can help.
Save your dog's life. We are going to talk about

(00:22):
Xylitol what it is why it's poisonous for your dog where it
exists and what foods might be. Problematic and of course, how
to keep your dog safe. So, let's get right into it.
First off, let's talk about whatxylitol is.
It is a low calorie sugar substitute.
It is typically made from corn cobs and birch bark and you can

(00:46):
actually sometimes see it labeled on food, ingredient
lists under names, like would sugar perch sugar, birch bark,
extract, or sometimes even just sugar alcohol, which can be
confusing because not all sugar.Alcohol's are problematic for
dogs but xylitol is. So if you see something with
sugar alcohol on the ingredient list, you want to be extra

(01:07):
careful around your dog's. Why is islet all poisonous
essentially? The reason it's used in humans
is that it does not cause blood sugar's to change you.
Right? Low?
Calorie low, sugar, that type ofthing.
But in dogs, it interacts differently and what happens is
it actually sets off a sharp increase in insulin and that can

(01:28):
actually lead to hypothermia glycemia, which is low blood
sugar. It can actually cause a few
other things to happen. The main one is Hypoglycemia,
but it can also caught cause hepatic failure, which is liver
failure. It can cause hypokalemia, which
is low potassium and it can evencause hypophosphatemia, which is

(01:49):
low phosphorus, I hope I got those names, right?
If I didn't forgive me hypoglycemia, it can actually
become deadly if it's untreated and obviously, Liver failure is
deadly and those are all intertwined.
I'm not enough of a medical professional to really dive into
all of that, but that's the basics of what happens.

(02:09):
So, the next question is, likely, okay.
Well, how much or what can causeproblems for my dog, generally
speaking? And again, I would just say
this, I hope this goes without being said, but if you believe
your dog ate, something was out at all, don't worry about how
much it was. Don't worry about, you know, how
many grams per kilogram for, just call your vet.

(02:29):
And if your vets on available, call the Poison Control, hotline
a lot of those, you know, the poison help phone numbers, they
will charge you, depending on what exactly happens with the
phone call. But is 50 to $75 worth keeping
your dog safe. In my opinion.
Yes, it is. So, again, call immediately if
you see or believe your dog ate something with Xylitol.

(02:50):
So as for calculations, I'm going to go through this and I
want to put a quick disclaimer that every dog is different.
We don't know exactly how dogs respond to certain things that
are poisonous. These are all kind of General
numbers that have been found through different studies.
So anything greater than 0.1, grams of Xylitol per kilogram of

(03:11):
body. Weight of your dog is going to
put your dog at rest will come back to these numbers and kind
of break them down, anything greater than 0.5, grams per
kilogram is likely going to be lethal unless it is treated
immediately. So, what does that look like?
You know, those Those terms, .1,G per kg.

(03:33):
If you're like me, I don't really know kg.
I go off of pounds. I don't really know G super
well. So I Enlisted the help of my
wife who is a nurse and she helped me break down some of
these numbers and what they mean.
So to do a quick calculation of what these numbers look like for
your dog, I'm going to give you like a basic formula again, if

(03:53):
you have any thoughts that your dog in Jesse's out, I'll just
call your vet but 0 greater than1 G per kg, put your dogs at
risk, greater than 0.5 grams perkg is likely lethal.
So let's look at this, my 70-pound Labrador would be about
32 kg I'll just say 34 easier numbers.

(04:15):
So basically, once you have yourdog's weight in kilograms,
you're going to times that by 0.1.
So in my dog's instance, going with the 30 kilograms roughly 3
grams of xylitol is enough to put them into hypoglycemia,
going into that 0.5 grams per kgthat would be about 15 grams of

(04:39):
Xylitol. Would likely be lethal for them
again. Get your dogs away, put it into
kilograms times that kg by 0.1 to know what is a risk level and
times it by 0.5 to know when itsbordering on lethal again, with
the caveat of, if you think theyate it, just call your vet.

(05:00):
So what does that look like? And this is where it gets
challenging is that most food items are not going to show
exactly how much is islet. All is in the product, they just
don't do that. So there's not an exact science
but roughly speaking will use the example of gum.
It's kind of the most common zero most sticks of gum have

(05:20):
about 0.2 to all the way up to 1gram of Xylitol.
So with the example of my Labrador, about 30 km, kgs
timesing that by 0.1 3 grams, ofcourse, if it's, you know, the
type of gum that's only half a gram of Xylitol.
Maybe they're going to need six,but potentially, as little as

(05:42):
three pieces of gum could cause my large Labradors to go into
hypoglycemia, which, if untreated can be deadly and then
going at that 0.5 number, it would be closer to about 15
potentially up to 25 sticks. But again, if your dog gets
into, They're not going to think.
Well, I'm only going to eat one stick.

(06:03):
They're probably going to eat atall and you can see how quickly
it can become dangerous and deadly for our dogs and
especially at a small dog. If you took a dog, that was even
half the weight of my dogs or you know, a third of their
weight. So let's go 10 kgs, they don't
even need a full stick of gun topretentiously enter into

(06:25):
hypoglycemia. So I don't want to fear Monger.
I don't want to freak you out, but I just And it to be clear.
That very small amounts of Xylitol can be extremely
poisonous, and even deadly for your dog.
So let's talk about the symptoms, what to look for.
If you think your dog may have ingested, Xylitol, these
symptoms can start fast sometimes as quick as 10

(06:45):
minutes, but can take up to an hour, you might see things like
being lethargic. Vomiting weakness, your dog
staggering collapsing. Even seizures generally acting
abnormal. And again, I'll say The faster
you get treatment for your dog, the higher, the likelihood of
survival, it's just that simple.So what does treatment look like

(07:08):
while there is not a remedy or you know, like an anti-venom for
Xylitol, typically what your vetmight do is try to induce
vomiting to get most. If not all of the product out of
their stomachs of less of it, gets into the bloodstream, those
types of things be aware though.You should not just start trying
to get your dog to vomit. If you think they ate something,

(07:29):
you need to call your It becausein some instances, it can cause
more problems that there's vomiting.
So again, call your vet. What they will likely do if you
bring your dog in outside of inducing vomiting, they may give
your dog intravenous glucose, which in Germania is just in the
veins, like an through an IV. They'll give glucose, they will
monitor the liver because again,the hepatic failure, liver

(07:52):
failure is one of the common things, they might give plasma
infusions, and generally, just Monitor, and keep an eye on your
dog. So, again, Call ASAP if you
believe this has happened, let'stalk about foods that can have
Xylitol in them. Of course, we've covered gum,
it's typically sugar-free gum but also things like sugar, free
mints, sugar-free candy, some peanut butter and nut butter

(08:16):
that you know, touts itself, as low sugar, even mouthwash and
toothpaste, which is why it's soimportant to never use human
toothpaste, you should use dog toothpaste for your dog certain
syrups and jams, even chewable vitamins.
Some personal lubricants nasal. Sprays, there's a whole host of
things that can include xylitol is really the next thought is.

(08:37):
Okay. How do I keep my dog safe?
How do I make sure that they arenot going to get their paws?
Mouths Hands-On Xylitol. First thing, when you're buying
items, just make sure if it has eyelid tall you are approaching
it differently than if it does not.
So the number one step is to just be aware, be aware.
If the products that you're purchasing contain Xylitol if

(09:00):
You decide you want to continue having those items in your home,
totally understandable, certain things.
You may not be able to go without like certain, you know,
nasal sprays, and those types ofthings.
So, if you are going to have something with Xylitol, put it
in a place that your dog cannot access even if they are behaving
poorly and getting into some mischievous activities.

(09:21):
So you know, instead of just having it put away or on the
counter have it behind a cabinetor even in.
Nothing that they're not able toopen up on their own different
things that you can do to keep your dog.
Safe. I hope truly that you never have
to deal with it. Unfortunately, there are so many
sad stories of parents who have lost their dogs from ingesting

(09:47):
Xylitol. So if you want to play it on the
extra safe side, don't get products with Xylitol as much as
possible. Just avoid them.
If you are going to have them, keep them out.
The number one, takeaway, I wantyou to have from this episode.
It is, if you believe your dog ingested Xylitol.
Call your vet immediately, the largest factor.
The number one factor for keeping your dog safe, and

(10:09):
hopefully having a good recoveryis the speed at, which they get
care. So it's important to do it,
immediately. Take care of what you need to,
if your vets not available call a pet poison hotline first and
then try to find an emergency hospital in your area.
Both at the same time, potentially do what you can to
keep your dog safe. Safe.

(10:30):
I hope you enjoyed this episode is kind of sad and scary as it
might be. Please leave a review on Apple
podcast. If you're listening on a podcast
clicking on the show The Perfectpup show within Apple podcast.
Clicking leave a review giving feedback giving episode telling
me episodes. You like giving me ideas for
future episodes all of it, I read every single review and if

(10:53):
you're on YouTube, subscribe, leave a comment.
I try to respond to all those comments as well.
And other than that, we I'll catch you on the next episode.