Can Dogs Eat Soy Sauce? When it is or isn’t an Emergency

Soy sauce isn’t toxic to dogs but can definitely make them sick especially if they were to eat too much of it. You shouldn’t let your dog eat soy sauce or any cooked meals that use a decent amount of soy sauce as a base ingredient, such as a Chinese stir-fry.

Why soy sauce is bad for dogs

The main concern is with the amount of sodium soy sauce contains. The sodium content will vary by brand but you could expect 100 grams of soy sauce to contain up to 5 grams of sodium. If that represents 230% of a human’s recommended daily sodium intake, imagine how high it is for your furry pal. Salt poisoning in dogs is a thing and can lead to a variety of worrying symptoms such as excessive vomiting, lethargy, and a lack of appetite.

How much soy sauce is toxic to dogs?

Salt toxicity can take place if your dog was to eat too much soy sauce. The threshold will depend on a number of factors such as the dog’s weight. For example, a teaspoon of soy sauce could be unsafe for a small dog but fine for a large dog. The health risk becomes larger if your dog doesn’t have any drinking water to handle the excessive amount of salt.

Call the vet or the pet poison hotline if you think your dog ate an excessive amount of soy sauce. Symptoms of salt poisoning aren’t always immediate and can take place a few hours after the soy sauce was consumed by your dog.

Some dogs may also have allergies to soy-based products including soy sauce and tofu. The dog may exhibit further worrying symptoms if they did have an allergic reaction to the soy sauce.

You can learn more about what is or isn’t safe for dogs to eat by visiting our human foods for dog database.