Can Dogs Eat Hot Sauce? Is It Safe or Harmful?

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Are you wondering if hot sauce will harm your dog? What about just a tiny taste?

Here’s the deal:

While your dog may enjoy a spicy or tangy kick, anything smothered in a spicy sauce should be avoided. So sharing this condiment is questionable at best.

The fact is hot-tasting foods are all wrong for pets — even in modest amounts.

Can I Give My Dog Hot Sauce?Do Not Feed Your Dog Hot Sauce

While your canine may appear to consume it without incident, most pets do not handle spiciness all that well.

Taste buds often take a liking to hot sauce, while the stomach says otherwise. Why not avoid making your dog susceptible to tummy upset!

Besides, there is really no valid reason to give your dog hot sauce.

Consider that such spicy concoctions typically contain chili which, in itself, is unusual for dogs to eat. Yet that doesn’t even begin to cover all the ingredients and preservatives in a bottle of hot sauce.

Fiery foods, fortunately, do not usually cause lasting damage — unless we are talking about a particularly intense recipe.

Regardless, consumption of hot sauce raises some real concerns. Keep reading to learn more…

Digestive System Myth

There is a common misconception about dogs and their seemingly invincible digestive systems. Their willingness to try just about anything does not mean they don’t suffer from poor choices.

If you do share some hot sauce, enforce a strict policy of moderation.

Hot Sauce Accidentally

There are situations where your dog may knock over a bowl of chili, or perhaps a bottle of hot sauce, causing it to spill.

The good news:

Digestive symptoms, after such a mishap, will likely pass. Of course, you can expect a bit of indigestion or diarrhea.

Don’t worry yourself as your dog should be fine. It’s just that regularly feeding hot sauce is something you should steer clear of doing.

Avoiding Poor Feeding Habits

There is no denying that giving your dog hot sauce is a bad feeding habit.

Dinner scraps, more often than not, are a dog’s favorite meal. We’re all guilty of it.

Occasionally feeding your dog a bell pepper is fine, but those which are spicy should be off limits.

While your typical hot sauce may not do direct damage to your dog’s long-term health, it could contribute to undesirable learned behavior in the form of begging.

Sure, some pet owners feed it because it seems to bring pleasure. Not smart!

Extremely Hot Sauce Effects

Super wicked fiery hot sauce can lead to an irritable bowel, and perhaps internal damage. This means big trouble for both you and your dog since vet visits may be inevitable.

Another thing to watch for:

Messy eaters that are prone to getting hot sauce in or around the eyes. Such a situation could be quite painful.

The Bottom Line

We do not recommend that you feed your dog anything that has hot sauce.

That includes foods like home-made chili. And obviously the more spicy the hot sauce, the worse the situation could be.

Play it safe. Keep this condiment out of your dog’s reach.

What Do You Think? Have Your Say Below…

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6 thoughts on “Can Dogs Eat Hot Sauce? Is It Safe or Harmful?”

  1. I was looking for info on hot sauce because I want to put it on my electrical cords to keep my dog from chewing those and getting hurt. It’s good to know that spicy foods might make my dog sick. I want to keep mine healthy. I would hope he wouldn’t taste the sauce more than once! By the way, my dog does not seem to like the taste; maybe some do.

  2. Faith Danley says:

    This one isn’t a problem for me. My Pit hates even the smell of spicy foods.

  3. The best quality, and even 90% of the cheap brands, hot sauces contain nothing but extract from a particular pepper (most commonly jalapeno but could be habanero, chili, etc.), vinegar, water and salt. How are any of those questionable or unhealthy? They may not be ideal for dogs, but those ingredients are hardly questionable.

  4. My husband made chili dogs for himself, my grandmother and perhaps our dog was given some. Early the next day, Tonka began vomiting and started having diarrhea. The stools became very runny and jelly-like after day 2 and now on day 3 it’s extremely runny and watery.

    I believe there is now blood in the stool because I see a lot of red in the watery substance. I am very worried and since grandma has no memory at all, I don’t really know if chili is the reason or if it’s something even worse.

    What has me stunned is that since Tonka has been sick, none of the other dogs will be around her. This is highly unusual because Ping Ping and Tonka have been completely inseparable since the babies were born. Seeing her sick is hard enough, but watching her family shun her is devastating.

    We do not have the financial resources to even take this dog to the vet so this makes it all the more upsetting. Please contact me if anyone has any knowledge of what I can do, here at home, to help sweet Tonka. Please, we would be eternally grateful.

    1. Hopefully you took the dog to the vet. Bloody stool is a major warning for serious concern. My dog had the same problem and the vet told us that we were lucky that we hadn’t waited any longer.

    2. You need to take the dog to the vet as soon as possible. Do not wait!

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