Almost all peanut butter crackers sold in grocery stores are not ideal for dogs. However, you can buy regular crackers that are safe for dogs and spread peanut butter on the crackers. This will ensure all ingredients are safe for your dog.
Dog’s love peanut butter. They also love crackers. But should you feed your dog peanut butter crackers? Unfortunately, the answer is not an extremely clear-cut one.
Before we get to the answer, though, it is critical that we first go over some basic facts about peanut butter, crackers, and the combination of both as a whole.
Facts About Peanut Butter
In most cases, peanut butter is safe for dogs to eat as long as we give it in moderation and in reasonable portions.
Peanut butter is a solid source of vitamins and minerals, like vitamin B and E, protein, niacin, and (healthy) fats. That being said, there are still some things to keep in mind when buying peanut butter.
The Types of Peanut Butter to Avoid
Many peanut butter brands, such as Jif or Nutella, include relatively high sodium and sugar count.
While brands like these won’t be deadly for your dog, avoiding brands that have these ingredients is not only a good idea for your dog, but also may not be a bad idea for yourself!
On a related note, keep in mind that xylitol, a sugar substitute, is deadly to dogs. Xylitol releases large amounts of insulin in dogs, which can be life-threatening.
While very few brands of peanut butter include xylitol, there are still a handful of smaller companies on the market that do include it. One such brand to be aware of is Nuts ‘n More.
The Types of Peanut Butter To Choose
There are many brands of peanut butter on the market. In most cases, your best bet is to opt for peanut butter that “sounds healthier”: unsalted peanut butter, natural peanut butter, and homemade peanut butter will usually have less harmful ingredients in them for your dog.
Crackers
Even more so than peanut butter, Crackers have a wide variety of brands with varying nutritional levels. This can make finding healthier crackers a challenge. Keep in mind the following facts.
The Type of Crackers to Avoid
When shopping for crackers that you may end up feeding your dog, there are several brands that you should stay away from. Here is a small selection of ones to avoid.
Ritz
Ritz Crackers tend to be higher in sugar compared to most other types of crackers. They are also loaded with high fructose corn syrup. They are not made of whole grains and have many additives that are not optimal for consumption by dogs.
Keebler Club Crakers
Keebler Club Crackers, like Ritz Crackers, are also very sugary and higher in fat content than most crackers, having 3 grams of fat. Also, like Ritz Crackers, they are highly processed and are not made of whole grain.
Wheat Thins
Wheat Thins are among the fattiest crackers on the market, having 5 grams of fat per serving. They are made with various sweeteners to enhance the taste, such as malt and refiners syrup.
These ingredients add to the carbohydrate content, bumping up a serving to 22 grams of carbs, 4 grams of which are sugar.
Cheese Based Crackers
Various cheese-based snack crackers, two examples being Goldfish and Cheez-It, are also loaded with fats. Cheez-It crackers have 8 grams of fat, while Goldfish have 5.
Needless to say, all snack crackers have different nutritional facts. However, it is best to avoid feeding your dog most snack crackers.
The Types of Crackers To Choose
Unfortunately, most crackers are not filled with health benefits, as most lack vitamins and minerals.
Your best bet is to purchase crackers that have whole grain in them, particularly ones where whole grain is the first ingredient on the list.
One such example is Triscuit crackers. You may also want to keep an eye out on ones made with vegetables, as they have a lower carb count than regular crackers.
Peanut Butter Crackers
There are a multitude of peanut butter crackers that can be purchased on the market. Most of the ones that you can buy in stores are high in fats and sodium. Keep these facts in mind while shopping for peanut butter crackers.
The Types of Peanut Butter Crackers to Avoid
Since most peanut butter crackers on the market are not ideal for dogs, here are a few examples of brands to avoid.
Ritz Peanut Butter Crackers
These are probably the most popular brand of peanut butter crackers. In every 6-pack of crackers, there are 11 grams of fat and 4 grams of sodium. This is a significant amount….and it affects dogs even more than humans!
belVita Peanut Butter Sandwich Breakfast Biscuits
While these are not quite as bad as Ritz Peanut Butter Crackers, they are still high in fat content. 2 sandwiches will consist of 9 grams of fat. There are also 34 grams of carbs, 10 grams of these being sugars.
Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Mini Sandwich Crackers
Although each cracker is small, they have a lot of fat per serving. For every 12 mini cracker sandwiches, there are 8 grams of fat. For the size and amount of crackers, this is significantly high.
The Types of Peanut Butter Crackers To Choose
Peanut butter crackers will not be the healthiest thing you can feed your dog, especially when they’re pre-packaged.
That being said, there is an excellent workaround to store brand products: individually buying healthy crackers and peanut butter and making sandwiches out of these.
Since most pre-packaged peanut butter crackers have additives that aren’t particularly healthy for your dog, you can avoid a lot of these by pre-selecting ingredients and making your own sandwiches.
This will ensure that you will better know what your dog will be eating when you provide it to them and will allow you to optimize their nutritional intake.
Alternatives to Peanut Butter Crackers
Peanut butter crackers made for humans are not the healthiest menu item for your dog. Several similar, more nutritious products on the market make for better alternatives to peanut butter crackers.
Here are a few we would recommend.
Three Dog Bakery Crackers
These are specifically made for dogs and make for an excellent treat for dogs. They have a variety of flavors that dogs will love, such as vanilla.
Blue Buffalo Health Bars
These are a healthy alternative to peanut butter sandwich crackers. The biscuits are made with whole grain and real meats and vegetables, ensuring your dogs will love what they eat… and you will, too!
GREENIES
These are not only something your dog will think tastes great, but it’s also good for their teeth! The texture of the treats is specifically designed to clean their gumline, kill plaque and tartar, and freshen their breath. This is an all-around win in our book!
We Do Not Recommend Peanut Butter Crackers For Dogs
Feeding your dog a peanut butter cracker, in most cases, will not kill them. Despite this, we would advise against feeding them to your dog.
If you are determined to feed them one, our advice would be to avoid any pre-packaged peanut butter crackers.
The best solution, in this case, would be to spread healthy, low carb and low sodium peanut butter on whole-grain, low carb crackers that are high in fiber. By doing so, you are lowering your dog’s intake of unnecessary fats, sugars, sodium, and carbs.
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