Can Dogs Eat Poppy Seeds? Or Are Poppy Seeds Bad For Dogs?

Nowadays, poppy seeds are part of a whole lot of different foods we tend to eat on a daily basis, be that cooking we prepare or daily goods we consume. For example, one cuisine where poppy seeds tend to be fairly popular is the Indian cuisine, while daily goods we consume that contain this ingredient are specific types of breads, as well as different kinds of desserts and sweets we may prepare at home ourselves or buy ready to eat.

Seeing that you’re a dog owner who likes to share with their best friend, as we’re all guilty of doing more than we should in all honesty, the obvious question that we should be asking here is: Can dogs eat poppy seeds? Or are poppy seeds bad for dogs to eat?

Can Dogs Eat Poppy Seeds?

Unfortunately for anyone that’s considering feeding their dogs poppy seeds, poppy is said to be poisonous to dogs (according to the Pet Poison Helpline), with varying levels of toxicity experienced depending on the amount ingested.

Why Are Poppy Seeds Bad For Dogs To Eat?

Poppy seeds are bad for dogs to eat because of the alkaloids they contain, which have all sorts of negative effects on a dog’s central nervous system and cause opioid poisoning in dogs.

For this reason, it’s very important that you never let your dog get close to anything related to poppy. So, make sure your dog never gets easy access to poppy seeds to eat, and make sure your dog is never left alone next to a poppy plant because they might consume any part of the poppy plant, and the negative effects are just as bad.

What Do I Do If My Dog Ate Poppy Seeds?

If your dog managed to eat any poppy seeds at all, or any part of a poppy flower you may have growing around in your garden that they managed to get access to, the following is a list of symptoms you have to actively monitor for in your dog.

– Inability to control movement properly & loss of coordination

– Zoning out

– Breathing difficulties

– Decrease in heart rate speed

– Increased hyperactivity/a sudden rush of energy that came out of nowhere

– Eyes tearing up/crying

– Seizures

– Coma

Chances are that if your dog only managed to eat a couple of poppy seeds, there most probably won’t be much adverse effects that you’ll notice and your pooch will be just fine.

The most your dog will normally experience if they ate only a very small amount of poppy seeds that their body managed to handle the most part of is some stomach trouble, such as a bout of diarrhea.

The very serious problems, though, begin to arise when your dog manages to gobble down a large amount of poppy seeds, say a bowl’s worth or an entire bag of them.

In such cases, leaving everything you’re doing and rushing them to the nearest emergency pet care center is a must because you don’t have much time to waste before these seeds take huge effect on your dog’s central nervous system, and the last thing you’ll ever want to risk with your dog is anything related to their brain.

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