Honey for Dogs. Can I give my Dog Honey?

Honey for Dogs
Honey for Dogs

Honey for dogs offers a variety of health benefits for your dog. However, there are still lots of uncertainties whether or not it is harmful to your dog. FAQ’s include:

  • Is honey good for your dog?
  • Can I give honey for Kennel Cough in dogs?
  • How much honey can I give my dog for a cough?
  • What is the best type of honey for dogs?

Here are answers to these and more info on the benefits of giving honey to Fido.

Is Honey Good for Dogs?

Honey is well known by human beings; it’s been around for centuries dating back to 8500 years ago. Natural honey has been used as food, cosmetics and for medicinal purposes by humans, but can the same benefits be experienced by our pet friends “Canines”? Dogs can also benefit from the goodness of honey as we humans do.

Natural honey has a lot of useful properties that make it stand out from other natural substances. This gives it a variety of purposes when it comes to your dog’s needs. It is an excellent source of carbohydrates offering your dog extra strength and energy.

The glucose in honey is absorbed quickly by the dog’s body spiking his energy levels in an instant. Honey has antimicrobial properties helps care and manage the dog’s wounds preventing infection and quickening its healing process.

The problem comes in when honey is used for younger canines. Honey either raw or processed has botulism spores that have adverse effects on dogs. While older dogs can tolerate it, puppy’s immune system is not matured fully hence they are at a here risk of fungal or bacterial infection.

Benefits of giving Honey for Dogs?

There are many ways in which your dog can benefit from honey. The antioxidant benefits, natural enzymes, and nutrients in the honey give a big boost to his immune system. It is important to note, however, that not all types of honey possess this goodness. Research has shown that most processed honey packaged as different brands lack most of these properties.

Benefits of Honey for Dogs
Benefits of Honey for Dogs

When honey is processed it is diluted, mixed with chemicals, heated and cooled quickly, leading to loss of beneficial properties rendering the honey useless. So purchase raw, organic, natural, unfiltered honey for better results. Here are the benefits and uses of honey for your dog.

Honey for Dogs Digestion

If your dog is having stomach upsets, digestion problems, diarrhea, constipation or trouble with appetite, honey can be an excellent digestive aid. Raw honey has enzymes that help the overall digestion system. Enzymes like Amylase facilitates proper carbohydrate digestion. Other enzymes help increase appetite, soothe the digestive system and manage diarrhea. Others help prevent infectious bacteria from forming in the dog’s digestive tract.

Feeding program

Introduce honey slowly into your dog’s diet to see if it’s helping; the amount usually depends on your dog’s size. Give:

  • 1 ½ tablespoon daily for large dogs.
  • Two teaspoons daily for medium dogs.
  • One teaspoon daily for small dogs.

Honey for Dogs Allergies

Seasonal allergies in dogs make it have itchy, dry or shedding skin. A teaspoon of honey raw organic honey will get rid of these seasonal allergies. Use raw honey. Reason– bees visit flowers and collect nectar in this processes they accidentally pick up pollens with their bodies.

The pollen will sometimes become part of honey. When you feed your dog’s raw honey that contains pollen, he develops immunity over time. This in due time enables the body to develop immunity to pollen and other types of allergens.

Feeding program

When you stop the feeding your dog, daily raw honey allergy symptoms may appear. Give:

  • 2-3 tablespoon daily for large dogs
  • 2-3 teaspoons daily for medium dogs
  • 1-2 teaspoon daily for small dogs

Kennel Cough (Bordetella)

Canines that have a persistent cough and sore throat get a lot of problems during sleep and rest. A dose of honey helps Soothe sore throats. It coats your dog’s throat in a layer and destroys bacteria which accumulates in its throat causing sore and itchy throat.

Feeding program

You should do this till the coughing and itching. Give:

  • One tablespoon three times daily for large dogs
  • Two teaspoons three times daily for medium dogs
  • One teaspoon three times daily for small dogs

Use Honey as a Sweetener- Hide Medication

Just like humans, dogs also find honey to be sweet. Honey contains about 65% fructose and glucose. It is a healthy option when used as a sweetener for dog’s foods and treats.  Honey can be mixed with lots of the dog’s food that are usually irritating and bitter.

It can also be used to hide the taste of bitter dog medication. Not only is this property useful in making the dog’s food and snack sweet it also can be used to hide out the dogs medication, its tastes the honey and ingests the drug without knowing of its existence in the honey.

Energy Booster

Honey can be used as an energy booster for your dog; it has good calorie levels and is a source of carbohydrate which makes it an excellent natural substance as energy level booster. Sugar in honey is broken down and digested very fast having an immediate effect in energizing your dog, making your dog more active and as you know an active dog is a happy dog.

This is a very beneficial property for all dogs most especially those that exercise often.

Feeding program

  • One tablespoon three times daily for large dogs
  • Two teaspoons three times daily for medium dogs
  • One teaspoon three times daily for small dogs

Honey for Weight Loss in Dogs

Honey can be combined with cinnamon or lemon juice to produce a mixture that boosts weight loss in overweight dogs. The combination helps the body break down fat stored in your dog’s body faster. This mixture is very helpful for dogs that have gained weight due to ill health or after a lot of dormancy after ailment or surgery.

Honey for Cuts, burns, and Infections

Manuka honey is highly recommended by vets as a remedy for infections, burns, hotspots, and cuts. We will discuss the properties that make it the best for wound later on in the article. Note that, other types of raw honey are still right for this purpose.

Here are skin healing properties in honey that make it excellent for burns, cuts, and wounds.

  • Honey reduces swelling and inflammation in wounds, pressure sores, and hot spots.
  • It dries up the burns and cuts because of its dehydrating properties.
  • Applying honey reduces itchiness and hotness around the dog’s cuts and burns making the dog more comfortable.
  • Honey provides nutritional benefits to the skin’s tissue.
  • It kills infection-causing bacteria with its acid properties and by dehydrating bacteria.
  • Honey also blocks of contaminants from the outside avoiding infection.
  • There are also features that enable it to speeds up body tissue growth, and seals of tissue and proteins that help with the healing process.

Application on the wound

When you decide to apply honey to the dogs wounds you need to consider which type of injury it is, is it a burn, cut, or hot spot or if it’s already infected.  Here are the procedures for dealing with these kinds of wounds.

Trim fur around the wound until you see the dog’s skin. Elizabethan collar is also necessary to prevent the dog from licking the wound because of honey or irritation from the wound. These are easy procedures which you can do at home as first aid or even as continues treatment.

Procedure for cuts
  1. After trimming the hair, run clean water on the cut.
  2. Apply honey on the cut, it will help stop bleeding.
  3. Dress with a light bandage, and monitor over time to see if the wound is bleeding.
  4. Do this repeatedly depending on the wound size.
Procedure for burns
  1. After trimming the hair around the burn, run clean cold water over the burn wound.
  2. Apply honey directly to the burn, at list ½ centimeter thick layer and spread it around the wound and the skin around the injury.
  3. Dress it with a clean bandage.
  4. If the honey feds with time reapply till the dogs stops filling pain.
Procedure for hot spots
  1. After trimming the hair, clean the wound area gently with Povidone-iodine with a mixture of water.
  2. Apply ½ centimeter thick layer, and spread it around the hot spots.
  3. It’s not necessary to dress the wound, but honey should be used 2 – 3 times a day.

For all the procedures above make sure you visit the dog’s vet after the proceedings so that he or she can assess your dog’s situation.

Honey as A Source of Vitamins and Minerals

Natural organic honey is a rich source of vitamins and minerals. It is rich in vitamin A, B-complex, C, D and E. The minerals are calcium, potassium, iron, manganese, copper, sulfur, iodine, and phosphorus which are essential for the dog’s growth and health.

Honey as an antioxidant

According to new research, honey has been found to have polyphenols which are also found in fruits, olive oil, and vegetables. Polyphenols are antioxidants that are very effective in removal of radicals from the dog’s body and sometimes preventing heart disease or even cancer.

Honey as an Antibacterial and Antifungal

Honey antifungal and antibacterial properties make it suitable for wounds. It is also used as a traditional antiseptic and is very beneficial for dogs suffering from Gastrointestinal Problems.

Calcium Absorption

Honey can improve your dog’s ability to absorb calcium.

Honey for Dogs Fur and Skin

Use honey as a moisturizing shampoo for dog fur. It has moisturizing properties that nourish the dog’s skin and hair. It also heals unseen infections on the skin and repels fleas and other insects.

Factors that may affect how your dog benefits form honey

Here are some of the affect that determine how much your dog benefits from consumption of honey;

Filtration

Companies that process honey products take natural raw honey through several filtrations to suit their needs, eventually destroying a majority of honey health benefits. That’s why raw honey is preferable to processed honey.

Storage

Storage time should be limited to avoid loss of its benefits. If honey is stored in the wrong way it will make it less useful for wound healing or any other purpose. Don’t refrigerate, just store it in a cool, dry place, and it can stay for a long time without losing its beneficial properties.

Blend of flowers

Although it’s difficult to determine the combination of flowers the bees picked nectar from, a mixture of different nectar from various types of flowers makes the honey more beneficial. Only bees make the raw honey so knowing the flower blends is not easy unless the honey was from domestic beekeeping.

Type of flower

Just the same as the blend of flowers, the kind of flower used by bees is hard to identify. However, the area where the honey was produced by bees can help identify what type of flower was used. For example, the Manuka honey which is considered as one of the best medicinal honey available to date, it comes from New Zealand.

The honey is made from a medicinal Manuka bush flowers found in New Zealand. Bees take nectar from the Manuka flower, and in which its medicinal properties go into the honey during bee honey production. The honey has Unique Manuka Factors (UMF) giving it an edge over other brands of honey. Its antibacterial fighting activity is higher, it’s more efficient in fighting off infections, and it can also kill over 250 strains of bacteria.

Other types of honey

  • Neem honey treats diabetes.
  • Acacia honey cleanses the digestive track.
  • Buckwheat honey.

Where to get honey for Dogs

There are different places you can get natural raw honey. They include:

  • You can buy honey from local beekeepers.
  • Some tribal people harvest honey from wild bees and sell it in their shops. It’s better than the ones from beekeepers because they use natural nectar.
  • If you can access the two, there is also online shopping, where you can get products from different places e.g. New Zealand Manuka honey. Buy according to ratings and from sellers with positive reviews.
  • There are also shops, some herbal that sell natural organic honey.

Avoid processed honey you may fail to get positive results from them.

Honey for Dogs Remedies

1. Honey and Cinnamon Remedy

This remedy can be used for weight loss in dogs. It helps with problems such as like hair loss, bladder infections and can be used to better your dog’s bad breath.

Honey for Dogs Remedies
Honey for Dogs Remedies

Mix one tablespoon of honey daily with two tablespoons of cinnamon. You can add warm water if the mixture is for weight loss

2. Honey and Lemon remedy

A blend of lemon and honey is an excellent weight loss aid in dogs. It also helps relieve stomach problems.

One teaspoon of honey, one teaspoon lemon juice, and Warm water twice a day will do the trick.

3. Honey and Cider Vinegar remedy

The mixture helps dogs with arthritis. You should mix one teaspoon of honey mixed with one teaspoon of cider vinegar and with warm water.

4. Honey and Milk remedy

This combination helps improve calcium digestion and also helps in cleansing the digestive system. A cup of milk plus two tablespoons full of honey daily will do the job.

The quantity depends on the dog’s size.

 Precautions about Use of Honey for Dogs

Honey is excellent for the dog, but it can become a problem because of the following issues.

  • Dogs younger than two years are in danger of adverse effects that come from botulism spore which is found in honey.
  • Diabetic dog. Since honey is has a high sugar content, it can cause significant problems if it’s not administered correctly or in controlled dosages to diabetic dogs. So it’s good first to find out if your dog is diabetic then your vet will direct you on what to do.

Gradually introduce honey to your dog while observing if there are any side effects.

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