Can dogs have crab meat? Benefits and Concerns of feeding crab to dogs

Yes, dogs can eat crab meat and crab meat is safe for your dog to consume but there are a few things you should know before adding it to your dog’s bowl.

You might have crab meat on the menu today, and you are probably wondering if you can share some of it with your best buddy – Your dog. But then you might be thinking, can dogs have crab meat? How safe is it? What are the associated risks and benefits to your dog? Are there any after-effects?

Below we have collected all the information you might need to know before your pooch takes a bite into some delicious cooked crab.

Cooked Crab Meat Benefits for Dogs, The Nutrients

Crabmeat is highly rich in protein; minerals like Magnesium, Phosphorus, and ZInc; and Omega-3 Fatty acids. Protein helps in the growth of hair, nails, ligaments, muscles, tendons, cartilages and skin. Protein provides amino acids to the body of your dog also helping in its hormone production.

Magnesium helps your dog’s body to absorb other essential minerals, it also helps support the function of the heart and other organs in the body. Phosphorus is needed for the growth of healthy bones. While Zinc helps to increase the immunity of your dog’s body protecting them from diseases and also to help with the Thyroid functionality of their body.

Omega – 3 fatty acids and it’s benefits

Omega – 3 fatty acids have tonnes of benefits for your canine including helping brain growth in puppies, reducing inflammation in their body, improving their skin and hair, boosting their immunity, increasing heart and kidney health and it also helps to reduce anxiety and depression related issues. 

Presence of Vitamin B-12 and it’s benefits

Crab meat is also filled with a very essential Vitamin called Vitamin – B12. Vitamin – B12, which is also called cobalamin, helps maintain your pooch’s health and also improve it by a lot. Vitamin – B12 helps in brain development and growth of blood cells in your canine’s body.

It helps to maintain the functionality of your dog’s nervous system and also helps in their digestion by increasing the intestinal condition. B12 is also a very important vitamin that is needed to promote the absorption of other nutrients and minerals, like Iron. A deficiency of Vitamin – B12 can lead to a deficiency of these minerals leading to diseases. 

Risks of Eating Crab Meat for Dogs:

Normally, cooked crab meat is completely safe for canines. It is raw crab meat that possesses a risk to them. Raw crab meat may contain intestinal parasites in them that can greatly harm dogs. These parasites can cause your dog to get tummy issues or even cause severe illness.

When crab meat is boiled, the extreme heat manages to kill these parasites. Resulting in your dog able to eat it without any risks. Other than parasites it is also advisable not to let your dog eat the crab meat with the shell on it whether cooked or raw. Crab shells or Snow crab shells are very hard. Moreover, they break into small sharp shards that can seriously harm the insides of your dog, their throat or their intestinal tracts if consumed.

Symptoms of such injuries could be traces of blood in your dog’s vomit or their poop.

Don’t let your dog eat live crabs on the beach

You should be very careful when you are with your dog on the beach. As your dog might try to gobble down a few crabs there. Eating live crabs at the beach possesses more risk as they’re unwashed and have more bacterias on them. Also, the crabs are going to have their shells on which again can greatly harm your dog if consumed. Crab meat should only be served to your dog after cooking it properly and all shells should be removed.

Cholesterol and Sodium in Crab meat

Crab is also very high in cholesterol and Sodium, too much crab meat can result in your dog having heart diseases, blood pressure and blood circulation issues as well. It is advisable to keep count of how much meat you are feeding your pooch.

Crab meat allergies in dogs:

Some dogs are reported to be allergic to crab meat. Crab meat tends to be high in Iodine and some dogs can have Iodine allergies. Symptoms for iodine allergy in dogs include diarrhoea, bad stomach, lethargic dog, and eyes and nose watering up. A dog that shows these symptoms within a few hours of eating crab meat might be allergic to iodine.

If you are already aware of your dog’s iodine allergy then you should not feed crab meat to your dog at all. If you do not already know if your dog has an iodine allergy or not. It is best to tread with caution. Feed small amounts of crab meat to them and then monitor their health for the next few hours, if no symptoms are found you can then proceed to feed your dog crab meat in normal servings. 

Prepare and Serve Crab Meat to Your Dog:

As mentioned earlier crab meat should be properly cooked before it is offered to your dog. Raw meat contains a lot of bacterias and parasites, seafood on the other hand is high in such risks. After cooking the meat, it is best to remove all kinds of shell from the crab before proceeding to serve to your dog. The shells can harm your dog and can also cause a choking hazard.

Seasonings should be avoided

Do not add any form of sauce, butter or oil. These are made with chemicals or are high in cholesterol both being very harmful to your canine. Onions and garlic should be avoided as well when cooking the meat, it has been noted that large amounts of onion consumption can cause dogs to get severely sick. Limiting the amount of crab meat you give to your dog is very necessary as well. Remember to only give small portions of the meat. You could also choose to add small pieces of the meat with your dog’s usual daily food to give them a bit of extra protein and some flavour.

Canned or Fresh Crab Meat?

It is easier to obtain canned crab meat from the market to feed to your dog. Less hassle and easier to buy as well. Canned crab meat can be fed to your dog but there are some things that you need to take note of. Canned food can have preservatives added in them. Chemicals like these can have adverse effects on your dog’s health. Other than preservatives canned food may also contain other additives or flavour enhancers which might be harmful to your dog. It is better to get fresh crabs directly from the fish market to feed your dog. If you do not want to take the trouble of doing that then you can opt for canned crab meat with no added preservatives that are sold in the market

Imitation of Crab Meat for dogs:

Can dogs eat artificial crab meat? No, dogs should not be fed artificial crab meat or any form of imitation meat. As the name suggests, imitation crab meat or crab sticks do not have any crab meat in it and only consists of artificial flavourings, additives, artificial food colours, and salt mixed with random fish meat. A dog’s digestion is weaker when compared to humans, artificial additives and flavourings can harm the dog and also cause them to suffer. Artificial food colours tend to contain harmful chemical compounds like mercury, arsenic and also lead.

All these artificial chemicals can cause your dog to end up sick. Chemicals like these are also blamed for increasing the chance of having cancer, and dogs having weaker immune systems are more likely to develop cancer.

Salt in imitation crab meat is harmful

Crab meat also contains high amounts of salt, salt can cause your pooch to have high blood pressure. Imitation crab meat or crab sticks are harmful to your dog with no dietary benefits and if given to them on a regular basis. It can cause severe illness or also kill them. If you are willing to treat your dog with crab meat, it is best advised to stick to cooked real crab meat only. 

Other Seafood that dogs can eat:

Dogs can have other forms of seafood like lobster, shrimps and some species of fish. From the types of fish you choose to feed your dog, you should always go for species that are smaller in size as they’d contain fewer toxins and other harmful minerals. Meat from sea food is the best form of meat you can provide your dog with. It is low in fat and rich in high level protein. Seafood like shrimps and lobsters need to have their shells removed before being served to dogs so that the shell doesn’t harm the inside of their throats.

It is also important to cook the meat properly to kill all bacterias in the meat. Lobsters and crabs are also very similar to crabs in the type of nutrients and proteins they provide. Lobsters are generally larger in size and can provide more meat for your dog. Shrimps are smaller and can be used to treat your dog in smaller portions.

Fish Bones can hurt your dog as well

Fish bones can also possess a risk to harm your dog, it is best to take out all bones after cooking the fish and then serve it to your pooch. It is advisable to only feed your dog with fresh seafood from the market and not canned fish, as it may contain harmful preservatives that can harm your dog.

To sum it up crab meat is a really good source of nutrients that your dog requires. But there are some precautions that you need to take before you are serving it to your dog as mentioned above. With crab meat there are other seafood options that are available too, each of them having their own taste. Can dogs have crab meat? We hope and believe you already know the answer by now. Thanks for reading the article.