Xylitol: Good for You, Bad for your Dog

I received my recent copy of Drs. Foster and Smith and they had an article about Xylitol, a sugar alcohol sweetener often used as a sugar substitute in many products we eat.

Now that Thanksgiving (and let's face it, the entire holiday season) is upon us, the ovens will be firing, and large quantities of yummy goodness will be cooked and baked to share with friends and family and more often than not, your pet.

Now I'm someone who reads every label and only feed my dogs high quality food that can hit the pocketbook, but nonetheless, I buy it because I know it's best for their overall health. I even bake their treats so I know exactly what they're eating. I was a little suprised, however, to learn of all the products that contain xylitol, so be sure to keep any food that has the following ingredients off your dog's menu:

Sugar alcohols: mannitol, sorbitol, erythritol, maltitol, lactitol, ribitol
Herbal sweetener: stevia
Artificial sweeteners: aspartame, sucralose

As always there's a debate as to the levels of these ingredients and just how damaging they can be to your dog, but I only have to hear that conditions such as liver failure, low blood sugar and problems including loss of coordination, depression, and seizure within 30 minutes of ingestion can happen and now I do an additional scan to see if these ingredients show up in anything I might think about sharing with my pack.