# Question - Eggs



## ShirleyH (Sep 13, 2009)

Hi all,

Does anyone feed their adult Havanese an occasional whole egg? If so, how often and how cooked?

Thanks!

Shirley H. (Keeper's Mom)


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## HavaneseSoon (Nov 4, 2008)

We feed the boys a scrambled egg maybe 1-
2x month. We are not breakfast egg eaters, but when we decide to have eggs, the boys get an egg for sure.

The boys love eggs!


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## Luciledodd (Sep 5, 2009)

I feed scrambled eggs to Rosie about once a week. I used to have a large outside dog that got a whole raw egg every day when I gathered the eggs. I didn't even crack it for him. But the only reason I cook them for Rosie is that her ears and mustache get food all over if it is "wet" and raw eggs are.


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## ShirleyH (Sep 13, 2009)

Thanks Linda and Lucille. I thought once every week or 10 days was okay. He'll be a happy camper tonight!


Shirley


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## Kathie (Jul 31, 2008)

Shirley, it's a special treat here but not too often. If we're having french toast we scramble up the left over egg for them. They love it but then they love just about everything!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Kodi gets a bit of scrambled egg at least a couple of times a week... When ever we do. But it's not anything like a whole egg at a time.


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## ShirleyH (Sep 13, 2009)

Karen, he did get a whole egg mixed with kibble last night and thought he was in hog heaven. It was fine and caused no problems, but I agree, half next time. We do not routinely eat eggs for breakfast so this will be a planned every-so-often event, probably twice a month or so. 

Thanks, Shirley


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## Momo means Peach (Jun 7, 2011)

I give Momo a raw egg every now and then. I have to wash her face and front paws afterwards, though.


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## Luciledodd (Sep 5, 2009)

Donnie that is the reason I scramble Rosie's egg. The only reason I don't give her one every day is that is too much food along with her kibble and I want her to eat the kibble first. I sent 4 dozen eggs home with my son and grandchildren yesterday and one dozen went to the office this morning for an employee. Two people just can't eat 4 eggs a day. But I try to make an egg dish at least once a week and at least once a week we have egg sandwiches for lunch.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

ShirleyH said:


> Karen, he did get a whole egg mixed with kibble last night and thought he was in hog heaven. It was fine and caused no problems, but I agree, half next time. We do not routinely eat eggs for breakfast so this will be a planned every-so-often event, probably twice a month or so.
> 
> Thanks, Shirley


Oh, I'm SURE Kodi would eat a whole egg... he LOVES them!!! And I don't think it would cause a problem. I just like to keep him slim, and that's a lot of calories to add to his regular food intake. I'd love to find a way to prepare eggs so that I could use them as training treats, but they are awfully messy!


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## misstray (Feb 6, 2011)

I tried giving Brody about 1/2 tsp of scrambled egg on the weekend for the first time. He played with it for about 20 minutes, but then did eventually eat it. He's a huge beggar but then picky about what he'll actually eat.


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## narci (Sep 6, 2011)

dumb question but why feed our havs eggs?

when you scramble the eggs, are they cooked?


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## ShirleyH (Sep 13, 2009)

Karen, the first vet visit after neutering, the vet asked me to cut back on his food 10% which we've done. I agree on 'not a whole egg'.

Rocky, I think eggs are a natural protein and would not feed even 1/2 of a raw egg. Yes, the scrambled egg is cooked through. I'd love to hear from Tom King and Dave Gabby on this subject.

Shirley (Keeper's Mom)


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## tootle (Jun 19, 2007)

Years ago, we were told by a group of Havanese owners, now Havana Silk Dog owners, that our dogs needed an egg a day to prevent cataracts and other other conditions such as CD . Their research indicated that Havanese need more cholesterol. I gave boiled eggs to my dogs every day and they loved them. Since losing faith in that particular study, I decided to not feed that many eggs but still do occasionally because they love them. It's so funny- they can hear me crack an egg a mile away  I just felt that I may be doing more harm than good feeding that many eggs when they get a great dog food already.My dogs have passed their CERF every year and their legs have remained straight, even without a daily egg.


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## ShirleyH (Sep 13, 2009)

Thanks E. Ann, seeing as you've raised some mighty fine Havanese, these are comforting words. Keeper will get half an egg perhaps once a week. He just goes crazy, but then he is a chow hound extraordinaire.

Shirley


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

tootle said:


> Years ago, we were told by a group of Havanese owners, now Havana Silk Dog owners, that our dogs needed an egg a day to prevent cataracts and other other conditions such as CD . Their research indicated that Havanese need more cholesterol. I gave boiled eggs to my dogs every day and they loved them. Since losing faith in that particular study, I decided to not feed that many eggs but still do occasionally because they love them. It's so funny- they can hear me crack an egg a mile away  I just felt that I may be doing more harm than good feeding that many eggs when they get a great dog food already.My dogs have passed their CERF every year and their legs have remained straight, even without a daily egg.


I believe that the Kings came to the same conclusion... the dogs love the eggs, but they don't really NEED them. They are an excellent source of protein though.


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

tootle said:


> Years ago, we were told by a group of Havanese owners, now Havana Silk Dog owners, that our dogs needed an egg a day to prevent cataracts and other other conditions such as CD . Their research indicated that Havanese need more cholesterol. I gave boiled eggs to my dogs every day and they loved them. Since losing faith in that particular study, I decided to not feed that many eggs but still do occasionally because they love them. It's so funny- they can hear me crack an egg a mile away  I just felt that I may be doing more harm than good feeding that many eggs when they get a great dog food already.My dogs have passed their CERF every year and their legs have remained straight, even without a daily egg.


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

Did you need to wean them off the eggs slowly? I thought Havanese can’t regulate their cholesterol.


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## 31818 (Oct 29, 2014)

Don't get me started on eggs. We give Ricky some egg WHITES only very occasionally. Our Vet strongly recommends against egg yolks because of the high cholesterol.  In my unprofessional opinion, eggs are not necessary for a balanced diet with a good dog food. Your Vet may recommend something different for your dog. You will have to use your best judgement for your dog, there is no one right answer.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Realcntrymusic said:


> Did you need to wean them off the eggs slowly? I thought Havanese can’t regulate their cholesterol.


your dog does not NEED eggs if you are feeding a good balanced commercial diet. Like most non-fatty proteins, they are fineIN MODERATION added as an occasional treat to their regular diet. Anything added in large quantities to an already-balanced diet can make the diet UNbalanced. At that point, it becomes a problem, whatever it is.


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

In a balanced commercial diet, I would agree that eggs are not necessary. I don’t think it hurts to add a small amount of whole egg to a commercial diet, however if you are feeding only part of the egg I think some imbalances can occur.

The egg as a whole (including shell) is balanced as far as calcium and phosphorus. If you do not include the shell, the phosphorus will be too high. This is likely okay if feeding very small amounts of egg but can start to become problematic if you are feeding too much. Feeding the white without the yolk is also a problem because the white contains a biotin inhibitor that is going impact how the dog absorbs biotin. The yolk contains a large amount of biotin so if fed together with the white everything balances out. Cooking the white will help destroy the biotin inhibitor so then it is not quite as bad but by cooking you are losing some nutrients.

I feed a homemade diet and include small amounts of raw whole egg including shell because they provide some very important nutrients such as selenium, choline, vitamin D and iodine. Almost all the vitamins and minerals are in the yolk. So for homemade feeders, eggs can be a great supplement. However, I still only feed a small amount. They also are very high in fat and some dogs do not tolerate fat as much as others.


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

The only reason I ask if Buddy should be weaned off two eggs a day is because my husband started feeding them to him every morning for the last month and I didn’t know.😖 I started doing research on here and realized he should only be getting a half an egg as a treat just once in a while. And then I came across the Havanese 100 study that they did in 2007, where havanese had an egg every day to bring up their cholesterol but they found that Havanese will stop making cholesterol on their own if you give them too much cholesterol. They were afraid that once they took away the eggs the dogs would get cataracts and crooked legs because they wouldn’t create their own cholesterol that quickly. I’m not sure if I described the study in complete detail. LOL It looked like a few of Tom King’s dogs were part of the trial and he said he weaned his dogs off of them. I wasn’t sure how to wean him off and how quickly. It’s been about a week and I’ve been giving him less and less. I’m down to one egg now. So maybe by next week he will be off eggs. Do you think two weeks to wean him off would be good for buddy to start making his own cholesterol? Who knows, maybe Buddy’s body never stopped making cholesterol. I think it’s only been a month since he started feeding him the eggs.


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

Realcntrymusic said:


> The only reason I ask if Buddy should be weaned off two eggs a day is because my husband started feeding them to him every morning for the last month and I didn’t know.😖 I started doing research on here and realized he should only be getting a half an egg as a treat just once in a while. And then I came across the Havanese 100 study that they did in 2007, where havanese had an egg every day to bring up their cholesterol but they found that Havanese will stop making cholesterol on their own if you give them too much cholesterol. They were afraid that once they took away the eggs the dogs would get cataracts and crooked legs because they wouldn’t create their own cholesterol that quickly. I’m not sure if I described the study in complete detail. LOL It looked like a few of Tom King’s dogs were part of the trial and he said he weaned his dogs off of them. I wasn’t sure how to wean him off and how quickly. It’s been about a week and I’ve been giving him less and less. I’m down to one egg now. So maybe by next week he will be off eggs. Do you think two weeks to wean him off would be good for buddy to start making his own cholesterol? Who knows, maybe Buddy’s body never stopped making cholesterol. I think it’s only been a month since he started feeding him the eggs.


i do not know anything about weaning dogs off eggs. I do know that if I fed Mia two eggs a day for a month along with her regular food, my 11 pound Mia would most likely weigh 30 pounds and I would have probably been up with her every night with the runs! Two whole eggs per day for a small dog is a lot!!!! However, I never really tried this! Moderation is key, even for good things.


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

mudpuppymama said:


> i do not know anything about weaning dogs off eggs. I do know that if I fed Mia two eggs a day for a month along with her regular food, my 11 pound Mia would most likely weigh 30 pounds and I would have probably been up with her every night with the runs! Two whole eggs per day for a small dog is a lot!!!! However, I never really tried this! Moderation is key, even for good things.


Yes, I know!! Buddy didn’t like the Wellness puppy wet food the breeder had him on so he was a little underweight. The vet said Buddy was the perfect weight after eating the eggs for a few weeks because of course he wasn’t eating the puppy food. I was researching a new wet healthy puppy food but so many are bad. I finally food K9 natural from New Zealand. He seems to like it but he is spoiled by the eggs!


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

Realcntrymusic said:


> Yes, I know!! Buddy didn’t like the Wellness puppy wet food the breeder had him on so he was a little underweight. The vet said Buddy was the perfect weight after eating the eggs for a few weeks because of course he wasn’t eating the puppy food. I was researching a new wet healthy puppy food but so many are bad. I finally food K9 natural from New Zealand. He seems to like it but he is spoiled by the eggs!


Good luck with Buddy. IMO, small amounts of whole egg with shell with shell can be good....very small amounts! Eggs without shell are very high in phosphorus. Fo puppies especially calcium and phosphorus needs to be balanced. I give mine small amounts of egg with shell to mimic a whole egg. This probably adds up to two eggs at most per week.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Realcntrymusic said:


> Yes, I know!! Buddy didn’t like the Wellness puppy wet food the breeder had him on so he was a little underweight. The vet said Buddy was the perfect weight after eating the eggs for a few weeks because of course he wasn’t eating the puppy food. I was researching a new wet healthy puppy food but so many are bad. I finally food K9 natural from New Zealand. He seems to like it but he is spoiled by the eggs!


I am SURE that two eggs a day is WAY too much for any Havanese… just in terms of caloric intake, if nothing else. One “regular” size egg is between 70-90 calories. So two is between 140-180 calories. Kodi, my largest Havanese gets about 250 calories per day. You would need to pack ALL your dog’s OTHER needed nutrients into just a meager 100 calories or less per day. That just isn’t possible.

PM Tom King directly if you want to find out how they weaned their dogs off the regular feeding of eggs. Certainly it is widely known now that there is no direct link between eggs (or lack of them) and EITHER cataracts or bowed legs! I have no problem feeding eggs as a healthy TREAT, as I do many healthy whole foods IN MODERATION. But these are NEVER as a “regular” part of my do’s diet, as I choose to feed very expensive, well balanced commercial food chosen specifically for my dogs. (Actually a couple of different foods, since I have one dog with food allergies, and he can’t eat what the others do!) When we have eggs, they get a bit of our eggs. They get a small serving of our cooked veggies almost every night. They get some fruit when we do just because they love it (no grapes!) and no, the fruit has little or no nutritional value for them… they just like it! I also feed them lean meats. However I normally save that for training treats, cut into small cubes. Even fillet mignon is cheaper than store bought training treats, and MUCH better quality food for them!!! (high value treats too!!!)


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

Obviously I don’t know the Kings personally but a while ago I remember he posted that he hadn’t received private messages on the forum, I think his email notifications were off or sent to spam or something. He actually posted his email address publicly and said to email them directly instead of PM. I think it would be okay to contact them directly.


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

I do not know anything about eggs being related to cataracts or crooked legs. However, I do know that if the calcium phosphorus ratio is out of whack (especially for a puppy), bad things can happen like major skeletal issues. If you do not feed the whole egg, this can easily happen, especially if you are feeding lots of them. The number one reason vets disapprove of homemade diets is because of this. However, it can also happen if you feed a commercial balanced diet and then add things to unbalance it.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

mudpuppymama said:


> I do not know anything about eggs being related to cataracts or crooked legs. However, I do know that if the calcium phosphorus ratio is out of whack (especially for a puppy), bad things can happen like major skeletal issues. If you do not feed the whole egg, this can easily happen, especially if you are feeding lots of them. The number one reason vets disapprove of homemade diets is because of this. However, it can also happen if you feed a commercial balanced diet and then add things to unbalance it.


Yes, I can’t agree strongly enough. Puppyhood is NOT the time to be monkeying around with nutrition unless you REALLY know what you are doing. Just because a puppy “loves it”, and is fat and shiney tells you NOTHING about what is happening inside. And unfortunately, diet-caused growth problems may not be apparent until it is WAY too late to correct them.

In an adult dog, it is much easier to feed a little too much of this now and a little too little of that later, and make up for the imbalances over time as long as you don’t go TOO far out of whack. Puppies grow VERY fast, and you just don’t have that luxury. They need a steady supply of essential nutrients at all time to lay down healthy bone and soft tissue and to grow healthy organs!


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

EvaE1izabeth said:


> Obviously I don’t know the Kings personally but a while ago I remember he posted that he hadn’t received private messages on the forum, I think his email notifications were off or sent to spam or something. He actually posted his email address publicly and said to email them directly instead of PM. I think it would be okay to contact them directly.


Do you know how I would find Tom King‘s email? I guess that would explain why he didn’t respond to my private messaging him two times. Lol


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

krandall said:


> Yes, I can’t agree strongly enough. Puppyhood is NOT the time to be monkeying around with nutrition unless you REALLY know what you are doing. Just because a puppy “loves it”, and is fat and shiney tells you NOTHING about what is happening inside. And unfortunately, diet-caused growth problems may not be apparent until it is WAY too late to correct them.
> 
> In an adult dog, it is much easier to feed a little too much of this now and a little too little of that later, and make up for the imbalances over time as long as you don’t go TOO far out of whack. Puppies grow VERY fast, and you just don’t have that luxury. They need a steady supply of essential nutrients at all time to lay down healthy bone and soft tissue and to grow healthy organs!


Yes I completely agree with you guys. that’s why I’m on here and I stopped it at once. My husband is the JERK OFF !!!


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

I felt like it was weird for me to post his email address, even though he said it was okay to email him. I don’t know if it’s any less weird for me to share the link to their website instead? It’s in Tom’s signature. Their contact information is on their website. This just seems like a really good question to ask him directly since he was involved in the study. Starborn 

I hope you’ll share the answer when you find out!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Realcntrymusic said:


> Do you know how I would find Tom King‘s email? I guess that would explain why he didn’t respond to my private messaging him two times. Lol


I’m sure it’s on the Starborn Havanese website!


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

Thank you everyone I will go to his website.


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

EvaE1izabeth said:


> I felt like it was weird for me to post his email address, even though he said it was okay to email him. I don’t know if it’s any less weird for me to share the link to their website instead? It’s in Tom’s signature. Their contact information is on their website. This just seems like a really good question to ask him directly since he was involved in the study. Starborn
> 
> I hope you’ll share the answer when you find out!


This is what Tom relied back...

That study was at least 15 years ago, and based off of one person's theory that Chondrodysplasia was because of the dogs inability to make enough of their own cholesterol. The study was inconclusive, but anyway, they found the genetic reasons for Chondrodysplasia a few years later. Some still clung to the theory.
We never fed our dogs a lot of eggs, but they are a good source of protein. Having chickens, our dogs do eat some eggs occasionally. Pam says she would just wean your dog.


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## Realcntrymusic (Oct 9, 2020)

Buddy is all weaned from his eggs and my husband isn’t allowed to feed him anymore. Just an occasional carrot 🥕


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

Eggs fed in moderation can be a great addition to a homemade diet, not because of protein, but because they are loaded with vitamins and minerals. Most of the valuable nutrients are in the yolk. Most dogs do not need more protein.


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