Can dogs eat raisins?

Why

Raisins, sultanas and currants are all dried grapes, and grapes are toxic to dogs. The leading veterinary explanation is tartaric acid, a compound grapes are rich in and that dogs appear to handle particularly badly. In a susceptible dog it injures the fine filtering tubules inside the kidneys, and that damage can build into acute kidney injury over the following day or two.

Drying is what makes raisins worse than the fruit they came from. The water goes; the tartaric acid stays. Gram for gram, a small handful of raisins carries considerably more of the troublesome compound than the same weight of fresh grapes, and raisins are far easier for a dog to hoover up in quantity. They are also small, sweet, and scattered through half the baking in a British kitchen.

The genuinely difficult part is that dogs do not react predictably. Some dogs eat a surprising number and stay well. Others become seriously unwell on very little. No dependable link between the amount eaten and how ill a dog becomes has been established, and there is no test that tells you in advance which sort of dog yours is. Being big is not protection either, and neither is having got away with it before.

This is why vets take it seriously out of proportion to how harmless a raisin looks. Dogs seen early, before the kidneys are in trouble, generally do very well, because there is a window in which the raisins can be dealt with and the kidneys supported. Dogs brought in once they are already unwell are a much harder problem. The whole outcome often hangs on how quickly the phone was picked up.

Is any amount safe?

There is no safe amount, and this is not caution for caution's sake. Because the reaction varies so much between individual dogs, the quantity that leaves one dog completely fine may make another dangerously ill, so any figure you might find or work out for yourself is a guess about a dog other than yours. That includes a single raisin picked off the floor, a corner of a fruit scone, or the ones baked into a hot cross bun where nobody can quite say how many there were. Do not try to reason it out by your dog's size or by what happened last time. Report what was eaten, as best you know it, to your vet and let them decide whether it matters.

Signs to watch for

• Vomiting, often within a few hours, sometimes with recognisable bits of raisin in it
• Going quiet and flat, less interested in food, less interested in you
• Diarrhoea, or a hunched, tucked-up look and reluctance to have their tummy touched
• Drinking noticeably more than usual, and asking to go out more often
• Then the opposite: passing very little urine, or none at all
• Wobbliness, a sour or ammonia-like smell to the breath, and obvious weakness

Keeping it out of reach

• Learn where they hide. Raisins, sultanas and currants live in hot cross buns, fruit scones, malt loaf, teacakes, mince pies, Christmas cake and pudding, stollen, panettone, flapjacks, cereal and granola bars, trail mix, some curries and tagines, stuffing, and the chocolate-covered ones that manage to be two hazards at once.
• Bags belong off the floor. Little boxes of raisins ride around in school bags, handbags, coat pockets, car doors and pushchairs, and a dog left alone with a bag will find them. Same for the lunchbox left on a low table.
• Brief the humans. Children share food, toddlers drop it, and visiting relatives think one raisin is a kindness. A clear house rule works better than supervision, and it is worth saying out loud rather than assuming everyone knows.
• Get the numbers in your phone tonight, not at 11pm on a bank holiday: your own vet, your nearest out-of-hours emergency practice, and an animal poison line. Fifteen seconds now, and you will never have to hunt for them.

Common questions