Sharing food with your pet may seem relatively harmless, but outside of encouraging bad begging behaviors and possibly even weight gain (thanks to the extra calories), you could actually be putting your pet's overall health and life at risk. There are a number of foods and ingredients consumed by humans every day, like chocolate, milk and garlic that can trigger serious toxic reactions in pets. We'll take a closer look at the ones that can be most harmful to your four-legged friends. We'll examine the signs of ingestion, the side effects, and what you should do in case of emergency. Let's start with one that seems very harmless: milk.

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- Public Discussion (7)
People should be familiar of the effects of various foods before sharing them with their pets. I wonder why people got in the habit of giving cats milk, since it causes them to have diarrhea... That's one I've know about for a long time.
- 5 votes
I found out about the milk thing when I gave it to a mother cat and her two kittens that I found abandoned by a stupid neighbor... I was cleaning the litter box 4-5 times a day... :(
- 3 votes
Many many years ago I used to give my cats milk occasionally. It had never given them any problems, so I was rather surprised to learn that many (most?) cats do have digestive problems from it. I will bow to the experts and not allow my current kittens to have any.
- 2 votes
daMamma...
Yeah, I know what you mean about milk for cats. It's just always been a given in most people's minds that they love it...
- 2 votes
I think because they seem to love it, it never entered anyone's mind it might be bad for them. I certainly never considered that a possibility until I read something about it in a pet magazine about 10 years ago.
- 1 vote
This is something we've been trying to tell my sister for years about her little dog. Now the dog is on insulin twice a day and we can't her blood sugar down to a normal level. It's not cruel to not share your food with your pets....it's for their own good!
- 3 votes
It's not cruel to not share your food with your pets....it's for their own good!
Absolutely. It's very important to educate ourselves about foods, plants, household cleaning products when we have the responsibility of caring for our pets. They depend on us to keep them safe.
- 3 votes
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