If you’ve thought about feeding your husky olives, you probably aren’t the only one – olives do appear on several dog food ingredient lists, after all – but can huskies eat olives safely, or should they be avoided?
Huskies can eat olives, but they need to be pitted and plain. Canned olives or flavored olives can be harmful due to the salt content, as well as any other flavorings that have been added, like garlic.
Keep reading to learn all about feeding huskies olives, including how many they can eat per day, how to know if they’ve eaten too many, and much more.
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Why Huskies Can Eat Some Olives
Plain, pitted olives are fine for huskies to eat in moderation.
They contain essential vitamins and minerals but are very high in both salt and calories due to their fat content, which means they shouldn’t be fed often.
Many dog foods contain small amounts of olives, so there is definitely some benefit to feeding them in moderation.
There are several types of olives to avoid feeding your husky, however.
Types Of Olives To Avoid
There are certain types of olives that you should never feed your husky.
Any flavored olives are on this list, as they often contain toxic ingredients to huskies, such as garlic. Olives soaked in alcohol should never be fed, as well as any stuffed olives or canned olives.
Stuffed olives can contain harmful ingredients to huskies, and canned olives can contain excessive amounts of sodium.
What About Green And Black Olives?
Black olives are ripe and tend to contain less sodium than their green counterparts.
There isn’t much difference to your husky on a small scale, so it doesn’t matter which type you feed as long as it isn’t excessive.
Nutritional Benefits Of Olives For Huskies
As per Healthline, 3.5 ounces of ripe, canned olives contains the following nutrients:
- 116 Calories
- 0.8g Protein
- 6g Carbs
- 10.9g Fat
- Vitamin E, Iron, Copper, Calcium and Sodium
Clearly, the main benefit of olives is fat, most of which is monounsaturated.
Monounsaturated fats help break down fat inside fat cells and lower cholesterol, so they benefit your husky. You’ll notice that olive oil is added to lots of dog foods to boost the content of fatty acids within them.
Low protein is not ideal, though, as most of your husky’s diet should be made up of protein, so olives should only be fed as a small snack that makes up no more than 10% of your husky’s calories in a given day.
This works out as roughly 2 or 3 small olives per day, although this isn’t something that you should do regularly. Most olives, even those that aren’t canned, still contain lots of sodium, which isn’t ideal for huskies either.
There are much better treats for your husky, and you can find our recommendations in our guide here.
How To Feed Your Husky Olives
Feeding olives to your husky is pretty easy, as long as you pick plain olives with lower salt content and remove the pit.
I think olives are a great treat to use during training or as a reward during exercise.
Since your husky can only eat a couple each day, it’s better to feed them slowly or cut them into smaller chunks than to add them directly to their food, where they will be eaten in seconds.
Can A Husky Eat Too Many Olives?
On one-off occasions, your husky will be fine if they have eaten more than a few olives as long as they are unflavored and don’t contain any pits. If this is not the case, or if your husky starts to show any signs of distress, go to your veterinarian immediately.
Feeding your husky olives regularly can lead to problems because of the high fat and sodium content.
High-fat diets can put your husky at risk of pancreatitis, which is an inflammation of the pancreas.
Excessive salt can also be bad for your husky, so you should avoid feeding them olives regularly and only offer them as an occasional treat.
What About Olive Oil?
Olive oil is excellent for huskies because it contains many fatty acids, an essential part of their diet. Extra virgin olive oil is the best because it has been processed the least.
Just like olives, it should be fed in small amounts. The easiest way to implement olive oil into their diets is to add a teaspoon to their regular food as a topper.
I’ve found that most huskies love the taste, and it’s a great way to change the consistency of their food as well, which they love.
In Summary
Huskies can eat olives if they are prepared right and don’t contain excessive amounts of sodium, but they aren’t something that should form a regular part of their diet.
Only feed your husky olives as a treat, and if you want the benefits of olives without as much risk, adding a small amount of extra virgin olive oil to their meals is a great way to achieve this.
Check out some of our other recent articles on different foods huskies can and cannot eat below:
