About two months ago I started putting garlic in my dog's food, and have seen nothing but positive health benefits.
I did this after seeing this really eye opening video about how garlic is actually considered healthy and pretty safe for dogs (unless, of course, your dog may have some kind of sensitivity to it). It repels fleas, fights fungus, and if you look further down the page, you'll see a video buy a woman who raves about garlic as a cancer preventive!
In my opinion, every single dog guardian should watch the video on this page by Gubba from Gubba Homestead.... it was a real eye opener, and i'm so grateful she made this, because the garlic really seemed to help my oldest rescue Shepherd Charlie, who had a pretty serious skin issue caused by an overgrowth of yeast. I was doing a few different things that were helping him somewhat, but after I started adding garlic to my dog's food, the improvement in his skin was very noticea
Why we think of garlic as dangerous for dogs
Most of us have heard that garlic is toxic to dogs. What most of us have not heard is the fact that the reason this rumor started is because there was a flawed study that was done, where dogs were actually given waaaaaay more garlic than any pet Guardian would ever give them. But guess what? The dogs didn't even die in that study. Even after they were forced fed garlic, they had blood changes that might be concerning, but they didn't even die! They went back to normal after the garlic was discontinued.
As Gubba points out, garlic cannot be patented, so they cannot sell it to you. Instead, it is far far, far more profitable for them to sell you. Toxic flea medications that will make dogs sick. A sick dog generates a ton of money for the a pharmaceutical and veterinary industries, while on the other hand, a super healthy dog that rarely needs to go to the vet, is not anything that helps them financially in any way whatsoever.
How I give garlic to my dogs
Every other night I put 3 or 4 garlic cloves into an instant pot of food I cook every other day, for my eight large rescue / foster dogs (5 German shepherds 3 huskies). I do give them kibbble, but I cook veggies and chicken separately, to mix with the dry food, offset some of the negative aspects of kibble (like acrylamide, a known carcinogen.... if you have not seen any videos on acrylamide, PLEASE look at the Dr. Berg video at the bottom of this page.... the one aboutthe most dangerous ingredient in the world).
Back to the dog food.... sometimes i cut up the the garlic, sometimes i don't, but i do try to mince it so it is more evenly distributed amongst my 8 dogs.
I will typically cook 6 potatoes, plus whatever other veggies, I may have on hand, which can vary depending on what's been on sale at our local market. I tend to buy things in bulk when they go on sale and then store them for the rest of the month. Things I add have included carrots, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, beans, rice, and chicken.
I cook the whole pot of food in an instant pot, 20 minutes on the high pressure setting. This gets divided among eight large rescue dogs, and that is a two day supply. They really like this food, and it smells GREAT when i cook ot with the garlic!
Please have a look at these videos about garlic!
https://youtube.com/shorts/avf5YBGOH88?is=nItXCh9Ve9JFpvji
https://youtu.be/i9B1V8qMuyE?is=s76G4iUkNzKo3AXJ
https://youtu.be/g40_qAvjoFo?si=6HW8KN4_sGyAYH7b
https://youtube.com/shorts/7pHrfp_chiE?is=1nnBr4VojaUB5zXs
https://youtube.com/shorts/NPxhGVJmfQc?is=lHJQaRaHkACi8ySU
The #1 Most Dangerous Ingredient in the World
(this is the video about Acrylamide)
https://youtu.be/bZ7MLOc9k9c?is=nirU7-00F40vXNdA
I also asked chat GPT to verify this study.
I said:
Do me a favor and find me the study that actually shows garlic is deadly for dogs. I heard that the study that launched a fear mongering campaign against garlic for dogs was actually one in which a huge amount of garlic was used. And it was way more than any person would ever give to any dog. And I heard that study didn't even kill dogs, they had blood changes, but they went back to normal. After the garlic was discontinued
https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6abf0a7529f0819182d8ec7e9f7067a7
It said:
You’re right about the high dose and the lack of deaths in the commonly cited 2000 study. My earlier warning needed more precision: that study demonstrated blood-cell damage, not that ordinary small amounts of garlic kill dogs.
The paper is Lee et al., “Hematologic changes associated with the appearance of eccentrocytes after intragastric administration of garlic extract to dogs”�, published in American Journal of Veterinary Research in November 2000.
What they tested
What they found
Eight healthy adult dogs: four received garlic extract, four received water
A very small experiment
Extract equivalent to 5 grams of whole garlic per kilogram of body weight, daily for seven days, delivered into the stomach
For a 66-pound dog, that equals 150 grams—about 5.3 ounces—of garlic every day
Blood monitoring for 30 days after the first dose
Red-cell count, hematocrit, and hemoglobin decreased; markers of oxidative red-cell damage appeared
Deaths or hemolytic anemia
No deaths were reported, and no dog developed hemolytic anemia
Those details support your point that the exposure was large. They do not establish the effects of a much smaller, occasional amount. I couldn’t verify the claim that every blood measurement returned completely to normal from the accessible abstract, so I won’t present that part as confirmed. �
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov +1
I also found a separate fatal case report, published in June 2026: “Fatal Garlic (Allium sativum) Toxicosis in a Dog.”� The authors attributed a dog’s death to garlic-associated hemolytic injury, supported by postmortem findings and garlic recovered from its stomach. However, the total amount eaten was unknown, and there were no blood tests before death. It is evidence of a suspected fatal poisoning, with substantial limitations—not a controlled experiment showing a particular dose causes death. �
PMC +1
There is evidence on the other side too: a 2018 study of specially prepared aged garlic extract found no observable adverse clinical or blood effects at the tested doses over 12 weeks. That result applies to that preparation; it cannot automatically be transferred to raw garlic. �
link.springer.com
Your criticism of how the 2000 study gets summarized is justified. “Garlic can damage dogs’ red blood cells at sufficiently high exposure” is supported. “A little garlic is deadly” is an overstatement of that study. Neither that experiment nor the aged-extract study establishes a safe, effective raw-garlic dose for flea prevention.
