Can Dogs Eat Blackberries? The Berry Is Fine, the Spray Is Not

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Quick Facts

This is our own research, not veterinary advice. For nearly every food there are many sources, and they do not always agree with each other. We check each claim against the veterinary and poison control sources, and we say plainly where they disagree. Even so, if you are in any doubt, contact a vet and do your own research before you feed anything to an animal in your care.

Blackberries are safe for dogs, and they are the better fruit by the numbers: about 43 calories per 100g, only 4.9g of sugar, and more fibre than most things on this list. A dog picking a few off a hedge on a walk is doing nothing wrong. The thing to actually think about with wild blackberries is not the berry, it is the bush, because blackberry is an invasive plant and people kill it with herbicide. Know what you are picking from, and the fruit itself is fine.

If I am walking a dog and it starts picking blackberries off a hedge, I would not make a fuss. A few is fine. In my experience a dog eats three or four and then carries on with the walk, and it is one of the more pleasant things to watch. They are surprisingly gentle about it, taking them off the bush rather than tearing at it, though I would not swear that is every dog.

What I do think about is the bush rather than the berry. Blackberry is invasive, and in a lot of places the way people deal with it is to spray it. I spent time as a landscaper and saw what some of those herbicides do, and not only to plants. So for me the rule is that blackberries are worth eating if they are genuinely wild and not sitting next to farmland where something has been sprayed.

That instinct is also what the guidance says, which is not always the case. Wild berries are safe to share as long as you are certain what they are and that they are free of pesticides and other chemicals.

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Can Dogs Eat Blackberries? Yes, a Few at a Time

They come in at about 43 calories per 100g, with only 4.9g of sugar, which is well below a pear at 9.8g or an apple at around 10g, and with 5.3g of fibre, which is more than almost anything else on this list.

The catch is the same as every fruit: the amounts are small enough that the nutritional benefit is barely worth counting. A few berries are a treat, not a supplement, and the guidance is to treat them as exactly that rather than as something a dog needs.

Wash what you pick or buy, pull any stems off, because they are hard to digest and a choking risk, and cut or mash the berries for a small dog. That is the whole preparation.

The Bush Is the Thing to Think About

This is the part I would put first if I were writing the page for myself. Blackberry is an invasive species nearly everywhere it grows, and the standard way of clearing it is chemical. A hedge along a field edge may well have been sprayed, and a verge beside a road may have been treated by a council.

I worked as a landscaper and on a council land crew, and I saw how the herbicides used on something like a bramble thicket work. My concern is not only for the dog. It is that a berry picked from a sprayed bush is a berry carrying something you cannot see, wash off reliably, or taste.

So the rule I use is about location rather than the fruit. Blackberries from somewhere genuinely wild, away from farmland and away from a road verge that gets maintained, are fine. Berries from the edge of a field where the farmer has been managing the boundary are the ones I would leave alone. You cannot tell by looking, and it costs nothing to walk on.

The published advice agrees on the principle, and adds the other half of it: do not give a dog wild berries unless you can identify them with complete certainty. Blackberries are easy to know, but a hedge can hold more than one thing.

The Berries That Are Actually Dangerous

If a dog is eating berries off a bush, the useful thing to know is which ones are genuinely bad, because blackberries are not the only thing growing on a hedge.

The ones to keep a dog away from are holly berries, poke berries from pokeweed, juniper berries and mistletoe berries. Those are the toxic ones, and they are worth recognising on sight if you walk anywhere with hedgerows.

The rule that covers all of it is simple. If you are not completely certain what a berry is, the dog does not eat it, and neither do you. Blackberries are the easy case because they are unmistakable once you know them, which is exactly why the location question matters more than the identification one.

Jam, Crumble and Cordial

The processed versions are where blackberries stop being a good idea, and it is the sugar rather than the fruit. Jam and jelly carry a very large amount of it, and a crumble adds more on top along with the fat in the topping.

There is a second reason to be careful with jam specifically. Jams and jellies sometimes contain xylitol, which is lethal to dogs, so a jar is worth reading before it goes anywhere near one. A dog that accidentally gets a small amount of ordinary blackberry jelly will most likely be fine, but that is not a reason to offer it.

My own position, and it is the same for every food: I would not feed a dog the processed version. A couple of fresh berries is better for the animal and involves far less risk of a stomach upset and diarrhoea everywhere. There is no need to test the dog's tolerance when the plain version is right there and it likes it just as much.

The Colour of the Stool, Which Surprises People

One thing worth knowing before it worries you: a dog that has eaten a lot of blackberries can produce stool that is blue or black, and it looks a great deal like blood.

It is not blood. It is the pigment in the fruit passing through, and the same thing happens with blueberries. If a dog has had a big handful of berries and the next day produces something alarming, the berries are the first explanation to consider.

It is still worth knowing the difference, because blood in stool is a genuine emergency and you do not want to talk yourself out of a vet call on the assumption that it is fruit. The test is whether the dog has eaten a lot of dark berries in the last day or so, and whether it is otherwise well. If it is unwell as well, or the colour is there without any berries, that is a vet.

How Many Blackberries

Treats of every kind should stay under about 10% of a dog's daily calorie intake, which is the standard most vets and the literature give. With berries that is easy, because a blackberry weighs about 5g and comes to roughly 2 calories.

The published portions are counted in berries rather than grams, which is the practical way to do it.

The calorie figures are our arithmetic on the published energy value of 43 kcal per 100g and an average berry of about 5g. The counts are the ones the sources publish.

The limit that matters is not really the calories, it is the fibre and the sugar together. Too many berries will give a dog gas, an upset stomach or diarrhoea, and a dog that is not used to much fruit will react sooner than one that is.

On a Sit: The Hedge on the Walk

Blackberries are the one food on this list that a dog is likely to find for itself rather than be given, which makes them a walk problem rather than a kitchen one.

My own approach is relaxed about the berry and careful about the location. A few off a hedge somewhere genuinely wild is fine and I would not spoil a walk over it. A hedge along a sprayed field boundary is somewhere I would move the dog along.

And if a dog does eat berries you cannot identify, the answer is the same as with anything else. Ring a vet or a poison line, say what the dog ate and roughly how much, and follow their advice. It is a much easier call to make early than late.

The habit underneath it is asking before you improvise, and the pre-sit question list is where that starts.

Where This Research Comes From

The sources behind this page:

Conclusion

A blackberry is one of the better treats on this list: low in sugar, high in fibre, about two calories a berry, and a dog will happily pick its own.

The caution is not about the fruit. It is about where it grew, because a bramble is something people spray, and you cannot see whether it has been. Wild and away from farmland is the version I would pick from, and the version I would let a dog pick from.

Caro and I have completed 20 house sits across 12 countries, driven 19,000km across Europe in our 1998 VW T4, and saved over $26,500 in accommodation costs over three years of house sitting.

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Frequently Asked Questions

• Can dogs eat blackberries?

  Yes, a few at a time. They are about 43 calories per 100g, lower in sugar than most fruit at 4.9g, and higher in fibre at 5.3g. Wash them and pull the stems off.

• Can dogs eat wild blackberries?

  Yes, provided you are certain what they are and that they have not been sprayed. Blackberry is invasive and is commonly killed with herbicide, so bushes near farmland or a maintained road verge are the ones to avoid.

• Can dogs eat blackberry jam or jelly?

  No. Jam and jelly carry a very large amount of sugar, and some also contain xylitol, which is lethal to dogs. A small accidental taste of ordinary jelly is unlikely to cause harm, but it is not a treat to offer.

• How many blackberries can a dog have?

  One for a dog under 5kg, up to 7 or 8 for a dog over 41kg. The published portions are counted in berries, and the limit that matters is the fibre and sugar together.

• Why is my dog's poop black after blackberries?

  The pigment in the fruit passes through, and a lot of berries can turn stool blue or black in a way that looks like blood. It is the same with blueberries. If the dog is otherwise well and has eaten berries, that is the likely explanation, but blood in stool without berries is a vet call.

• Which wild berries are toxic to dogs?

  Holly berries, poke berries from pokeweed, juniper berries and mistletoe berries. Do not let a dog eat wild berries unless you can identify them with complete certainty.

• Can dogs eat blackberries with seeds?

  Yes. The seeds are small and soft and have never been an issue with the dogs we have looked after. The stems are the part to remove, because they are hard to digest and a choking risk.

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