At the risk of sounding dumb, what is an apple "pip"? We have an apple tree in our yard and my dog scarfs them too but we've had no serious problems from it. However I didn't realize they were toxic to dogs.

Anne, the pip is the seed. Here's one site I found that talks about the poison (cyanide) that apple seeds contain: http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/apples.asp

Hi, there is a product called Olewo Carrots that is interesting:
http://alpha-nutrition.stores.yahoo.net/olewocarrots.html

Hmmm, I heard of the cyanide warnings in apple seeds.

I was always skeptical of the claims that swallowing a few would cause instant death (or that they're toxic, whatever ). I've swallowed and even crunched up a number of apple seeds in my lifetime without any ill-effect.

My rabbits eat apples all the time (including the seeds) and they're fine. Even the little baby bunnies can eat that stuff. And they eat their body-weight's worth of apple cores (damn rabbits are more expensive than my dogs to feed!!)

My dogs have eaten apples (core and all) too, never been sick from it. But they only sample fruits/veggies from time to time - I no longer include it in their meals as a staple of their diet.

 Quote: Yuko Blum

I was always skeptical of the claims that swallowing a few would cause instant death...

I've never heard that claim.

Like all the cyanide-containing foods (such as apricot pits, cassava, almonds), they are toxic in large does. Cyanide is toxic at about 0.05 milligrams of cyanide per deciliter of blood, according to the CDC.

The amount a person would normally ingest, either accidentally or deliberately, in one or two pieces of fruit, say, is very small and would not cause that blood level (or even close). The amount that a dog might eat (like my piggy-dogs, for example) if he came upon an unlimted source, could cause that blood level. (Children who have eaten large quantities of apricot pits have had rapid breathing, low blood pressure, headaches, and coma, and some died, again according to the CDC.)

An average-size man who ate the equivalent of a cup of apple pips would probably die, it turns out by doing the math (how much in pips, how much constitutes lethal dose). That's a lot of apple pips, but not at all impossible. For a dog, who would eat the core and all, it's far more likely than for humans, who usually don't like the taste of the core and seeds. I can imagine a 40-pound dog eating a quarter-cup of pips while pigging out on a pile of apples.

True, though, that they'd have to be chewed. Not impossible, I think, and I think too that it's quite possible that even if much less than a lethal amount ended up chewed, enough to cause brain and nerve or thyroid damage might be.

Inhaling tobacco smoke or the smoke from burning plastic is a good way to get cyanide right into the bloodstream, too, BTW.

According to my vet student friend, apple pips are like grapes, onions and chocolate in that different dogs have different sensitivity (although they are healthy for NO dog). Also depends how many they eat to body weight.


Edited to say: Darn you Connie and your lightning quick posts!

 Quote: Amber Morgan

According to my vet student friend, apple pips are like grapes, onions and chocolate in that different dogs have different sensitivity (although they are healthy for NO dog). Also depends how many they eat to body weight.

Yes, this is exactly what I learned in canine nutrition courses..... that dogs, like humans, have individual sensitivity levels, still not fully understood, to these toxins. The dogs who died from liver damage after eating grapes or raisins had, in many cases, eaten no more than other dogs who appeared to be unaffected.

Rabbits are used in testing cyanide antidotes, and they too appear to have varying degrees of sensitivity.

 Quote: Amber Morgan

Edited to say: Darn you Connie and your lightning quick posts!

And that's with two-finger typing, too!

A lot of GSD breeders use Olewo Carrots as a staple in their dogs diet to deepen the red on the coat. I bet zoos give it to the Flamingos to make the plumage brighter.

Thanks for the info; I will make sure to keep the apples off the ground now.