Should Dogs Eat Garlic?

I have a livestock guardian dog and sometimes he comes in contact with wild canids who would like to eat my livestock. He is very good at telling them NO.

During one encounter, he contracted mange mites. His snowy white fur began falling out and pink patches of skin appeared on his head and neck. It was clearly very uncomfortable and he was itching a lot.

This is Fjord, my livestock guardian dog.

There are pharmaceuticals that will rid a dog of mange mites, fleas and ticks, but they do so by filling your dog with pyrethrins, organophosphates, fipronil and imidacloprid. Pests leave your dog alone when you give them these "medicines" because those chemicals make your dog toxic. Apparently, pests are smarter than we are because the pests know to leave that stuff alone.

I would rather use medicine that strengthens my dog so that his body can naturally defend itself against pests, rather than something that is slowly poisoning him.

I bought garlic pills and began adding them to my dog's food. Within days, the pink patches of raw skin began growing back thick new fur. The itch went away. The mites were gone.

And he didn't die.

Beautiful organically grown garlic.

Garlic Doesn't Kill Dogs!

I was excited with my good results and shared the experience in a livestock guardian dog facebook group.

Facebook being what it is... I got blasted with nasty comments about how I was killing my dog and people told me to keep those kind of comments out of the group.

Why do so many people think that garlic is poisonous to dogs?

A study was done in 2000 by K. W. Lee et al where they gave 1,250 mg (stated as 1.25 mL) per kg of body weight of garlic extract to dogs once a day for 7 days. It induced hemolysis in the test group and the researchers concluded that garlic should not be fed to dogs.

The amount that was fed would be the equivalent of giving a 75 pound golden retriever 60 cloves of fresh garlic per day! Why would anyone give that much?

The study is cited all the time without considering the extreme dosage.

Another study was done in 2018 by Yamato et al (interestingly, Yamato was part of the research group who performed the 2000 study) which fed aged garlic extract at a much lower dosage to dogs, only 90 mg per kg of body weight, and they found no adverse effects in the dogs.

This is the equivalent of feeding a 75 pound golden retriever only 4 cloves a day. That's still more than I would probably feed.

The study concluded that garlic "might safely contribute to the health of dogs provided that the appropriate dosage is used."

Benefits of Feeding Garlic

People have been giving garlic to dogs for ages as natural wormer and flea prevention.

It's not just that garlic won't kill your dog, garlic is actually good for your dog.

Garlic:

• has a pungent energy that warms the body.

• improves circulation by relaxing blood vessels, which lowers blood pressure.

• lowers bad cholesterol and increases good cholesterol.

• helps the immune system fight sicknesses by stimulating macrophages and lymphocytes.

• feeds good bacteria in the gut (prebiotic).

• is antibiotic, antifungal, and antiparasitic.

• detoxifies the blood and supports liver health.

Dosage

For every 10 pounds of dog body weight, give a 1/4 clove (or 1/3 tsp) fresh raw garlic.

Not all garlic has the same sized cloves. The garlic variety that I grow tends to have big cloves, bigger than these guidelines are assuming. Some locally grown garlic that I see in health food stores is surprisingly small. It's worth mashing up a couple of cloves and measuring them to get a feel for how big the cloves are that you will be using, and adjust accordingly.

For the size cloves this chart is advising, if you take one fresh clove and mash it up, it should fill a measuring teaspoon so that it's heaping full, or 1 1/3 full.

Here's a chart for easy reference, assuming "standard" sized cloves:

Dog's Weight	Cloves	Tsp of Garlic
5 lbs	1/8 clove	1/6 tsp
10 lbs	1/4 clove	1/3 tsp
25 lbs	5/8 clove	5/6 tsp
50 lbs	1 1/4 cloves	1 2/3 tsp
75 lbs	1 7/8 cloves	2 1/2 tsp
100 lbs	2 1/2 cloves	3 1/3 tsp

Notice that this is less than half of the dosage recommended by the 2018 study. Be sure that small dogs don't get too much more than suggested, but it' fine to round up to a whole clove for bigger dogs rather than measuring out fractions of a clove.

Use fresh, organic, raw garlic. Do not use minced garlic in a jar. That stuff is no longer potent, it will have limited therapeutic effect.

Fresh crushed raw garlic will have the highest levels of allicin, which is the sulphur compound responsible for many of garlic's antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects.

If you wish to use garlic pills, you will have to calculate how many to give your dog based on label information. Pills are not as beneficial as fresh raw garlic, but they are convenient, and they worked for ridding my dog of mange mites.

Me with my freshly pulled garlic.

During late summer and fall, I have garlic for sale here at the farm and at the farmer's market!

What are your favorite uses for garlic?