Danger of Hops to Dogs

Sticky is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/dangers-hops-your-pets-108935/


Dontman, I agree 100% that this condition is EXTREMELY RARE, with only a handful of cases reported even in the last decade among the millions and millions of dogs out there.

However, there have been enough cases out there to spread just enough information that this topic comes up very regularly. because of this and the amount of misinformation out there, I wrote the aforementioned post to try and help alleviate some of the hysteria that goes along with it, and try and cut down on some of the "wow have you heard about this?" and "my dog sniffed my hop plant, should I go to the vet?" posts.

I also agree that dogs should never have the opportunity to get into things like hops, but hey, accidents happen, and for those we must prepare.

Some more perspective:

You are 740 times more likely to die from a lighting strike than your dog is from hops poisoning.

You are 1610 times more likely to die being trampled to death at a rock concert.

(Maybe we should start a sticky - Things that are more likely than your dog dying from ingesting hops)

deathweed said:

Sticky is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/dangers-hops-your-pets-108935/


Dontman, I agree 100% that this condition is EXTREMELY RARE, with only a handful of cases reported even in the last decade among the millions and millions of dogs out there.

However, there have been enough cases out there to spread just enough information that this topic comes up very regularly. because of this and the amount of misinformation out there, I wrote the aforementioned post to try and help alleviate some of the hysteria that goes along with it, and try and cut down on some of the "wow have you heard about this?" and "my dog sniffed my hop plant, should I go to the vet?" posts.

I also agree that dogs should never have the opportunity to get into things like hops, but hey, accidents happen, and for those we must prepare.

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No, no I really appreciate you explaining the real situation to quell the hysteria fomented by this thread. I am in 100% agreement with your post.

dontman said:

There is no evidence whatsoever that spent hops in your spent grain is dangerous.

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Ok I agree that the risk is minimal. As I posted... you dog is more likely to die from eating raisins or chocolate etc. But 'no evidence'?

Hop Toxicity in Dogs

We have received a report from a brewer whose dog died as a result of eating the spent hops from a 15-gallon batch of Irish Stout.

Unbeknownst to most vets, at least eight cases of hop toxicity in dogs have been recorded by the National Animal Poison Control Center at the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL. Seven of the dogs have been Greyhounds, with one remaining case being a Labrador Retriever cross.

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My dog ate a single hop pellet and puked green.......Scared the crap out of me because I had heard about the "poison" thing, but no real harm done. I felt somewhat lucky.

Edit: He is a very small dog BTW. He would fit in a donkey's ass

dontman said:

There is no evidence whatsoever that spent hops in your spent grain is dangerous.

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Do you have any backing for this statement?

If you read the article that deathweed referenced in the other thread:

"Malignant hyperthermia-like reaction secondary to ingestion of hops in five dogs"

J Am Vet Med Assoc. January 1997;210(1):51-4.
K L Duncan1, W R Hare, W B Buck
1 National Animal Poison Control Center (presently the ASPCA National Animal Poison Control Center), College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Illinois, Urbana 61801, USA.

Abstract
Five dogs, 4 of which were Greyhounds, suffered adverse effects secondary to the ingestion of spent hops. Mean time to onset of clinical signs was 3 hours, and clinical signs included marked hyperthermia, restlessness, panting, vomiting, signs of abdominal pain, and seizures. Four of the 5 dogs died despite aggressive therapeutic measures, and there was rapid onset of rigor mortis in 3. The overrepresentation of Greyhounds, coupled with the clinical signs, was suggestive of a malignant hyperthermia-like response to the ingestion of hops. It also is possible that hops contain an uncoupler of oxidative phosphorylation.

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Get full article here.

I do not think anyone is being hysterical. Just pointing out the fact that something we do, substances we keep in our homes as part of our hobby could possibly be dangerous to your pets.

My opinion and suggestion:
-Treat hops (fresh or spent) just like you would treat anything else that could harm your pets.
-If you think your dog has ingested a substantial amount of hops or anything else known to possibly be bad, know the warning signs. If their health worsens take them to the vet.
-Don't freak out.

dontman said:

Some more perspective:

You are 740 times more likely to die from a lighting strike than your dog is from hops poisoning.

You are 1610 times more likely to die being trampled to death at a rock concert.

(Maybe we should start a sticky - Things that are more likely than your dog dying from ingesting hops)

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Could also say that you're a million times more likely to buy your beer than make it... you can make statistics say anything....

So you correct for the incidence of homebrewers coinciding with being pet owners, I'm sure the chances skyrocket pretty good.

Another thing to consider is that although dogs becoming ill / dying from hop ingestion is rare from among all dogs, how many dogs have access to hops? Not that many I would suspect. Obviously, the percentage of dogs with access to hops is much higher in this community than in the general public. I was simply suggesting that since presumably all our members deal with hops, it might be nice to let new members know about a potential problem. If a sticky stopped one dog from dying, or saved a member a large amount of medical bills, then it was worth it IMO.

lordbeermestrength said:

We call the cat s#it after it's rolled in litter "almond roca." Luckily our new dog hasn't discovered this treat yet.

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Well, scratch that. The wife just found him rooting around in the kitty litter box today. Son of a *****!! Really, he is...

conpewter said:

Ok I agree that the risk is minimal. As I posted... you dog is more likely to die from eating raisins or chocolate etc. But 'no evidence'?

Hop Toxicity in Dogs

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Before my rant, conpewter, I did not mean to single you out. My rant is directed at the 20 hysterical "Oh My God, I would have killed my dog if not for this thread" posts before yours.

Yes I am fully aware of THE single article that EVERYONE always quotes every two weeks when this topic reemerges like a particularly malignant herpes infection.

I meant to say nothing but anecdotal ecidence. Nunley's post that his dog died is a great instance of anecdotal evidence. (And I by no means accept it as fact.) There is currently a thread citing anecdotal evidence that a man died from drinking a tainted batch of beer. Where is the sticky for that? Certainly it is just as important that we save humans' lives as dogs, right?

What about the sticky citing the dangers of alcohol allergy. I received a report that 8 people I know have cousins that died from alcohol allergy.

What about the danger of beer causing people to fall off of roofs. I actually saw a person come to a party, grab his first beer of the night, walk over to the edge of the roof balcony, misjudge the height of the railing and fall over backwards. The next week this event was reported in the school newspaper and the fall was attributed to beer because the beer he had in his hand spilled all over him. Officials cited this event for rest of my time at college as the reason for increasingly Draconian alcohol rules.

Your post actually says "we have received a report" huh? wtf? From whom? From where? Some schmuck on the internet? From Nunley? Some guy who shows up and makes one post and is gone. Seriously. "We have received a report" is nothing but anecdotal. They mention that five dogs have died. Out of how many tens of millions of dogs that have lived in that time frame. At least 50 million. 1 in ten million does not even qualify as a statistical anomaly.

Out of that many dogs that have lived it could easily have occurred 5 times that a dog ate a 5 lb bag of raisinets and then coincidentally went into the kitchen where his owner was brewing beer and ate some hops and the owner only saw him eat the hops and the vet blamed the hops.

I am not saying that MH does not occur in dogs from ingesting hops, period. I am saying that if you have been this forum, or any forum for that matter, for longer than a month than you know how the membership, especially the newer membership, is very susceptible to accepting myth and overblown freak occurrences as imminent and assured.

If I didn't know better and I was about to brew my first batch of beer and I saw that I would be putting my pets in imminent danger by doing so I just wouldn't do it.

Think about this. More dogs have died from house fires that their owners caused while brewing beer.

Stickies are meant to convey the most important info that new members should know. So now Hop Toxicity is one of those.

I have known a couple of dogs who have eaten large quantities of chocolate in the 8-16oz range and none have had any problems, but it is well known that dogs should never have chocolate because it can kill them. The difference between 1 in a 1,000,000 dogs having an allergic reaction and 1 in 50,000,000,000 humans having tainted beer is that human's have standard treatment that almost all ambulance or hospital personal can take care of. Where all vets won't have everything since each animal and situation calls for different care.

You can see me swell and breakout in hives, all animals are so different that you can't always recognize symptoms and if they're barely visible, a dog can't say "hey get me to the freaking hospital."

You tell people not to give chocolate to their dogs because in some cases it will kill them. If you thought there was a chance that 1 sip of beer would kill you then you would not ever drink beer.

dontman said:

Some more perspective:

You are 740 times more likely to die from a lighting strike than your dog is from hops poisoning.

You are 1610 times more likely to die being trampled to death at a rock concert.

(Maybe we should start a sticky - Things that are more likely than your dog dying from ingesting hops)

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THIS. We are looking at the "Internet forum effect" in this thread, although it was identified much earlier. One of the best is from the Republic of Plato, where he talks about speakers having their words and the response of the audience bounce among the rocks and be multiplied and amplified thereby, thus impressing all who hear of the importance and significance of what is said, no matter its true import. I suggest a sense of proportion here.

Since there are so few cases of hop-induced MH, can we investigate the opposite?
Has anyone's dog eaten a significant amount of hops without getting sick?

HairyDogBrewing said:

Since there are so few cases of hop-induced MH, can we investigate the opposite?
Has anyone's dog eaten a significant amount of hops without getting sick?

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Not quite how scientific research works, but good try. I can go out and pick the first 10 people I meet on campus and chances are none of them will be black. Does this mean that there are no blacks on campus? OF COURSE NOT. I do not mean to be racist or bigoted in any way, its just my class of 135 students has 0 blacks in it. With even this large sampling, does that mean there are no black veterinarians, or no black students? Nope, not at all.

As far as hops and dogs, I agree with you dontman (as stated before) that it is flippin rare!!!! Not only do you need an animal that is genetically pre-disposed, but they need to ingest hops. This combination is very rare, but those that are at risk would be home brewers with pets (this site). Does this mean that it is common among home brewers with pets? NOT AT ALL, it is still flippin rare!!!! It could happen to me, or to you, but it is just as likely Bill Gates rear ends you today and hands you a blank check and says, "fill in what you want."

You are incorrect that there have been NO reported cases in the last 12 years. You are correct that there have been NO PUBLISHED PAPERS on the subject in that time, but that does not mean the issue does not exist. My discussions with a couple veterinary toxicologists have indicated that while rare, it occurs frequently enough for investigations to take place using a drug for treatment that is more common and less expensive, and more likely to be found in your average private practice.

The lone purpose of the sticky was not to frighten people into thinking their dogs are going to die if they sniff a hop pellet, but to give some facts on what malignant hyperthermia is, and how infrequently it occurs. I could throw in some more bold and underline if you wish, but if someone is a hypochondriac, they are just going to go to some other unverified site and get the mis-information that they want. For that reason, I put the recommendation at the bottom to go to your vet for emesis and monitoring, which is not a bad idea for a lot of your pets indiscriminate eating. Does this mean that its necessary for all to receive immediate veterinary care? No, but I would rather have someone go straight to their vet than to sit and look up all kinds of mis-information on the internet and scare themselves silly.

I would much rather have a small sticky created by someone knowledgeable in the field saying it exists, but is unlikely, than to have the issue pop up every other week or so and may or may not be addressed by someone who has the facts straight.

Well, the only ones we can ask are homebrewers, really.
If exactly 8 dogs have eaten hops and all have died, that's one thing.
If 800 dogs have eaten trub and 8 have died, mostly greyhounds, that's another.
My guess is the latter, because no one reports good news.

HairyDogBrewing said:

because no one reports good news.

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I did!! I posted here that my dog ate a single hop pellet and threw up. That was good news in as much as it didn't kill him. What it DID do was convince me that hops and dogs are not good news. Given the number of people on this forum that brew beer (I'm guessing 97% for no particular reason) and the number of those people that have dogs, I don't think there is any over-reaction in this thread at all. No matter how few dogs actually die from eating hops, the number of dogs that un-die from eating them is less.

OK, that's one for "ate a pellet - threw up - didn't die".
Any more?

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

......No matter how few dogs actually die from eating hops, the number of dogs that un-die from eating them is less.

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Know what LG? Your use of the English language is utterly amazing! I always sit in awe of the way you don't say the things that should be left unsaid without unsaying the other things that lack understandability, but only when the moon is unfull.....

HairyDogBrewing said:

OK, that's one for "ate a pellet - threw up - didn't die".
Any more?

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My neighbour's dog is a reall asshat. I am willing to experiment, if that will help your research!

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

No matter how few dogs actually die from eating hops, the number of dogs that un-die from eating them is less.

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Actually, my dog ate a single hop pellet and now he's a zombie. :cross:

bull8042 said:

Know what LG? Your use of the English language is utterly amazing! I always sit in awe of the way you don't say the things that should be left unsaid without unsaying the other things that lack understandability, but only when the moon is unfull.....

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Meet me on the "insult thread" I will unsay everything you didn't mention about the bits that I never said.

SumnerH said:

Actually, my dog ate a single hop pellet and now he's a zombie. :cross:

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the best way to kill a hop crazed zombie dog is with a wet shovel.

deathweed said:

Not quite how scientific research works, but good try. I can go out and pick the first 10 people I meet on campus and chances are none of them will be black. Does this mean that there are no blacks on campus? OF COURSE NOT. I do not mean to be racist or bigoted in any way, its just my class of 135 students has 0 blacks in it. With even this large sampling, does that mean there are no black veterinarians, or no black students? Nope, not at all.

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Yet you use as the basis for your report a "study" that had a sample size with a grand total of 5 dogs! The one thing that everyone always hangs their hat on to prove the connection between hops and MH and it is not, according to what you just posted, based on scientific study in any way. It is a ill-founded, ill-conceived, tentative hunch that a group of non-research non-scientists have made and which we for better or worse have latched onto like a barnacle. Absolutely no conclusions can, or are meant to for that matter, be drawn from such an abstract. This is the type of hunch which spurs a study if someone deems it credible and important enough. Obviously they didn't. We shouldn't either. Keep in mind that the Merck book completely ignores this hunch when they list the possible causes for MH.

Maybe those 5 dogs got sick because they were gray. Maybe it was some rat poison that they got into as a group. Maybe they were chained in a 130 degree barn with no water and only hop soaked grains to eat for a day. Maybe the three DVMs who wrote this hate beer and are doing their part to sabotage laws that are favorable to it. Maybe they all got anesthesia that day (an actual verified cause for MH.) I could go on endlessly. There are hundreds of possibilities. All of which would have equal credibility because, as you state very clearly, we simply cannot draw any scientific conclusions from such a small sampling.

I realize that I am coming off as completely "con" to your "pro" position. The fact is, when I read it I fully understand the term "extremely rare" and for me you have put enough caveats in it to make me understand that it is for all intents and purposes, a non-issue.

The reality though, is that by shining any light on it at all, (and we are now shining a 500W Klieg light since it is a sticky) we are dramatically bloating the significance of what is essentially a non-issue.

Dontman....In my own experience, I have one dog, and one instance of said dog eating hops. Dog threw up. Therefore, 100% of my experience in this field indicates that Dogs eating hops is not good.

Our bodies reject poison by vomiting. That is the reason I am still alive today. My dog rejected hops by vomiting. OK, he didn't die, but this was one SINGLE hop pellet!

I can honestly see no reason for me to reject the majority concensus that hops are bad for dogs, and possibly lethal for them when I consider my own personal experiences versus your fuzzy logic.

rico567 said:

THIS. We are looking at the "Internet forum effect" in this thread, although it was identified much earlier. One of the best is from the Republic of Plato, where he talks about speakers having their words and the response of the audience bounce among the rocks and be multiplied and amplified thereby, thus impressing all who hear of the importance and significance of what is said, no matter its true import. I suggest a sense of proportion here.

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The one I like the best. I'm sure we've all seen those stickers on gas pumps warning of the explosion risk from using your cell phone. In fact there has never been an explosion, and it has been proven that cell phones are incapable of generating a spark significant enough to ignite gas fumes.

So why all the stickers? (millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on those stickers, by the way.) The scare, and the resulting stickers, were the result of an internet prank.

People started the rumor to see if they could cause it to become part of accepted modern beliefs.

Small Gods exist and grow because someone believes in them.

Dontman, I bet you tip coke machines just to spite the warning sticker.

Dontman, I don't think that I ever mentioned that paper as a study, and if I did, point it out so I can change it. That paper was a CASE REPORT which is used FREQUENTLY in medicine ESPECIALLY in the instances of RARE conditions. With that in mind you are correct that we don't KNOW everything about it, in fact I remember stating in the sticky "this is a poorly understood area of veterinary medicine," but that does not make it a non-issue.

The fact alone, that without the sticky, this issue popped up very regularly with a vast amount of misguided information and opinion begs that some good solid advice founded on current veterinary understanding of the situation be posted where everyone can see it. Am I trying to inflate the response to this, of course not! It was popping up frequently enough as is!

I understand your position of "we don't know everything about it, there are no solid studies, its very rare, so its a non-issue." I understand this completely, but not everyone out there is enlightened enough to do their own research, hence the sticky giving what information we know, and how rare it is.

Beyond this, I am failing to see where your major issue lies.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Meet me on the "insult thread" I will unsay everything you didn't mention about the bits that I never said.

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Oh yeah! I ain't unskeered! :rockin:

Back on topic, I have a dog that has eaten hops left over from the trub-dump as well as several pieces of chocolate on many occasions with no ill effects. 35lb Pit/Pointer mix vs 33lb 2 year old holding a Snickers..... like taking candy from a baby. I won't be supplementing her diet with chocolate covered hop pellets any time soon, but in our case, neither have been a problem.

dontman said:

Small Gods exist and grow because someone believes in them.

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If that's a Terry Pratchett reference, to you.

bull8042 said:

Back on topic, I have a dog that has eaten hops left over from the trub-dump as well as several pieces of chocolate on many occasions with no ill effects. 35lb Pit/Pointer mix vs 33lb 2 year old holding a Snickers..... like taking candy from a baby. I won't be supplementing her diet with chocolate covered hop pellets any time soon, but in our case, neither have been a problem.

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Chocolate is a different issue entirely and is better understood. Chocolates contain a chemical called Theobromine which acts as the toxic agent with doses ~200mg/kg causing death in some animals. Now milk chocolate contains only 44mg/oz, so your 35lb dog would have to ingest 4.5lbs of milk chocolate to get bad toxic effects. Sure signs would be seen earlier than that, but it still takes A LOT of chocolate in a mid-large dog.

The issue with chocolate arises with small dogs and bakers chocolate. Bakers chocolate contains 390mg/oz of theobromine, so a small (think a 5lb yorkie) dog would only need about an oz to receive a lethal dose.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Dontman, I bet you tip coke machines just to spite the warning sticker.

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Really funny. No, not Coke machines but I do purposefully use my cell phone when pumping gas. So far only one person has challenged me.

I do it as a form of civil disobedience against the public's blind trust in the written word simply because it is robed in scientific verbiage or seemingly official acceptance.

llazy_llama said:

If that's a Terry Pratchett reference, to you.

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Indeed it is. to you for recognizing.


And deathweed, nothing personal intended. Just having some fun. The irony, or hypocrisy if one chooses to judge me harshly, is that I want this topic to go away and die a quiet death yet I am doing more than my part to keep it at the forefront of people's minds. Oh well. sigh.

dontman said:

And deathweed, nothing personal intended. Just having some fun. The irony, or hypocrisy if one chooses to judge me harshly, is that I want this topic to go away and die a quiet death yet I am doing more than my part to keep it at the forefront of people's minds. Oh well. sigh.

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Oh I understand that completely, you are just the most active conversation I have today and I am bored out of my mind.

deathweed said:

Oh I understand that completely, you are just the most active conversation I have today and I am bored out of my mind.

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Aye, the same reason I have for almost all of my strong stances on this forum. The fact is it is just beer brewing and while I love the hobby I don't feel any aspect of it is life and death.

P.S. I don't feed my dog hops as a protest if any of you are wondering.

dontman said:

P.S. I don't feed my dog hops as a protest if any of you are wondering.

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But you could always try it and let us know how it works out.....No risk involved, after all.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

But you could always try it and let us know how it works out.....No risk involved, after all.

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I also don't shave before the big game. And I wear my hat inside out to spur a rally.

When I was a child I did not step on cracks either; for fear that my Mother would be paralyzed.

I am just as susceptible to modern myths as anyone else. The instinct, after all, is buried deep in our primeval brains

I have personally seen a dog dying from hops ingestion - and its not pretty. Been there as my wife treated the dog (fairly hopelessly since they did not have any Dantrolene on hand).

Now milk chocolate contains only 44mg/oz, so your 35lb dog would have to ingest 4.5lbs of milk chocolate to get bad toxic effects. Sure signs would be seen earlier than that, but it still takes A LOT of chocolate in a mid-large dog.

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While your facts are correct about theobromine, the numbers you quote can;t be held to exactness. It depends on the breed as well. We nearly lost our 90lb Irish Setter when he ate 3 lbs of Hershey milk chocolate bar (it was one of those really big bars). My wife (the vet) was still in school then but she knew what to do - he would have died if he had not gotten vet attention.

If I was mean spirited I could test this out on some neighborhood dogs... but I couldn't/wouldn't ever do that.

brrman said:

........ 3 lbs of Hershey milk chocolate bar (it was one of those really big bars).....

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Now THAT is what I am talking about! I have to find one of those......FOR ME! Chocolate rush, here I come!

brrman said:

I have personally seen a dog dying from hops ingestion - and its not pretty. Been there as my wife treated the dog (fairly hopelessly since they did not have any Dantrolene on hand).



While your facts are correct about theobromine, the numbers you quote can;t be held to exactness. It depends on the breed as well. We nearly lost our 90lb Irish Setter when he ate 3 lbs of Hershey milk chocolate bar (it was one of those really big bars). My wife (the vet) was still in school then but she knew what to do - he would have died if he had not gotten vet attention.

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You are correct, the values I used were the LD50's, but I didn't feel like explaining what that meant. A lethal dose to one dog is not necessarily a lethal dose to another. I also think I mentioned you would see toxic effects before that dose, but may not have made it clear. Thanks for pointing that out and muddying the waters for everyone else here

Ok, it appears I was wrong. Apparently there are people out there who leave poisons within reach for their dogs.

I have to ask, did you put out a nice bowl of antifreeze for him to wash down the chocolate bar?