Can You Give a 6 Week Old Puppy Peanut Butter?

Your little pup is transitioning to solid food now and you are wondering, can you give a 6 week old puppy peanut butter? Dogs in general love peanut butter but when is it safe to start giving your pup this much-loved treat?

It’s safe to give your six week old puppy peanut butter but you need to make sure that you do not over feed them with it. Too much peanut butter can lead to loose stools and frequent pooping.

You also need to make sure that you give them natural peanut butter or the diet type which may contain xylitol. Xylitol is an artificial sugar replacement that is harmless to humans but can be dangerous to dogs especially puppies.

When Should I Wean My Puppy?

To get a better understanding of when you can give your puppy peanut butter, you need to know when they should start eating solid foods.

Solid foods need to be gradually introduced during the weaning process. Weaning usually starts at four weeks and ends at eight weeks.

At this point, you can start introducing solids. The recommendation is to give them dry kibbles mixed with a bit of warm water to make them soft.

Breeders recommend making the mixture a soft gruel. It will be a bit difficult to get the puppies to eat at this stage so you can encourage them by putting a bit of it on your finger and encouraging them to lick it off.

It’s also important to have canine milk replacement at this point to help the process along. To make the weaning process easier, you need to separate the pups and mother for about three or four hours at a time so that the puppies are not so dependent on their mother.

Can You Give Your Puppy Peanut Butter?

Peanut butter is choke full of healthy nutrients that benefit your dog in many ways. Eating it will definitely help in the development of your little pups body.

As your puppies get better at eating solid foods, you can then introduce peanut butter at the five to six week mark. It is at this point that they will be getting better at assimilating nutrients from solid food.

Peanut butter contains some oils and proteins and it’s important to give it to puppies in moderation. I will talk about some of the side effects you need to watch out for a little later on.

Start off by giving them really small amounts depending on the breed and size of the dog. use It is also a great way to get your puppies or dogs to take medication but this has to be done with caution because some medications are not meant to be taken with food.

Ask your vet before doing this. You can also Google the amount of peanut butter that you should give our pups but I will note that peanut butter should be looked t as a treat and not a meal or meal replacement.

Not So Rosy Things About Peanut Butter

So, what can happen if you give your puppy too much peanut butter? One of the noted effects of giving your puppy or full-grown dog too much peanut butter is loose stools and too many bathroom breaks.

Peanut butter will cause your pup to want to poop a lot. If they are not yet potty trained, you will have to deal with a lot of puppy poo around the house.

I’m sure you would want to avoid this at any cost so use moderation. Another side effect of too much peanut butter is that your puppies can get overweight.

Peanut butter is rich in protein and although it’s a necessary nutrient for the overall growth of your puppy, too much of it will lead to your pup growing too fast.

This is not good as it will lead to other health complications down the line. You also need to watch your overall feeding schedule for your pup to avoid this and we will look more into this a little further down the line.

Another side effect of peanut butter that is worth mentioning here are allergies. Just like human beings, dogs can also have allergic reactions to nuts.

You need to be watch out for any of these in your dog. They will manifest as coughing, sneezing, swelling and in some cases, trouble breathing.

Avoid Peanut Butter With Xylitol

With the way people are now very mindful about what they eat, we now have a lot of products on the market that are engineered for weight loss.

This is also the case with peanut butter as well. There are some lean variants on the market that use xylitol; and artificial sweetener.

Although xylitol is pretty harmless for you and me, it is very dangerous for dogs. Whenever you buy peanut butter, you need to make sure that you read the labels to ensure that there is no xylitol in it.

The fortunate thing is that most brands of peanut butter do not have it. Xylitol will cause a massive dip in your dog’s blood sugar levels which leads to weakness and in extreme cases seizures. You want to avoid it at all costs hence the need to read the labels of your peanut bottles to make sure that it’s not present in any of them.

Are all Nut Butters Safe for Your Puppy?

Unfortunately, not all nut butters are the same. Some butters are safer than others so you will need to be mindful about what you give to your pup.

Before giving them any other type of nut butter, do some research first to establish whether or not it’s safe to give it to them. Most tree nuts especially macadamia nuts are nuts that you need to stay away from by all means.

Conclusion

So, can you give a 6 month old puppy peanut butter? The short answer to that is definitely. You just need to make sure that it is done in moderation and that you watch out for any side effects that they might have on your little for legged friend.