Because most ranch dressing recipes contain onion, garlic and chives, which are toxic to dogs, you should not feed it to your dog.
What is ranch dressing?
Ranch dressing is a popular salad dressing in America, invented in Alaska in 1949. Due to its growing popularity, it quickly became a commercial success and was shipped all across the country. Today, ranch dressing is a staple condiment to salads and other meals, and can be found in many supermarket shelves across the world from different brands and manufacturers.
The ingredients in each ranch style dressing will depend on the recipe (if you’re making it from scratch) or the brand or manufacturer (if you are using store-bought). However, most ranch dressings will contain a combination of mayonnaise, buttermilk, salt, garlic, onion, chives and other herbs and spices.
The nutritional content will also vary depending on recipe or brand. However, for the Hidden Valley brand of original Ranch dressing, there is 14g of fat, 260mg of sodium and 0g of protein in a 2 tbsp (30ml) serving.
Can dogs have ranch?
No, you should not feed ranch to your dog. This is because ranch usually contains ingredients from the Allium genus of plants. That is, it contains garlic, onion and chives – all of which are toxic to your dog. Allium plants can damage the red blood cells in dogs if ingested. If your dog eats enough of these ingredients, it may experience:
- decreased appetite
- vomiting
- diarrhea
- abdominal pain or discomfort
- anaemia (low red blood count)
- kidney damage
- weakness
Not only that, ranch contains a high level of fat and sodium for its small serving size, with negligible or zero protein. Consuming too much fat can lead to your dog becoming overweight, and too much salt can make your dog thirsty and even sick.
Conclusion
Ranch dressing is a tasty and delicious dressing on salads – but only if you are a human. If you are a dog, on the other hand, it’s a different story. Ranch often contains garlic, onion and chives, which are not dog-friendly. It also often contains a high amount of fat and salt content relative to its serving size, with little to no nutritional benefit. For these reasons, we recommend you keep ranch dressing away from your pet canine.
