Home > Blog > Can Dogs Eat Courgette? Yes, Unless It Is Bitter
Quick Facts
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can dogs eat courgette? | Yes, raw or cooked, and plain |
| What is in it | 17 kcal and 95% water per 100g |
| The bitter test | If it tastes bitter, do not feed it. That is cucurbitacin |
| The stem | Remove it. It is tough to digest |
| Raw or cooked | Both are safe. Cooked is easier on a stomach |
| Fried or in bread | No. Oil, salt and sugar |
| How much | A teaspoon to three tablespoons, once a day |
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.
Courgette is safe for dogs raw or cooked, and it is close to the least substantial food on this site: 17 calories per 100g and 95% water. The one thing that genuinely matters is taste. A bitter courgette carries compounds called cucurbitacins, some varieties and crossings have them, and they cause severe vomiting and diarrhoea in dogs and cats that can last up to five days. Bitterness is the warning. If it tastes bitter to you, it does not go near an animal.
I have given dogs courgette, but only a small piece and not often. Usually because the dog is sitting next to me while I am chopping, and it gets a sliver to chew on. It is not something I would look at and think to give a big piece of.
We had courgette in the garden in Portugal, and for a stretch of summer they grew so fast that we ran out of ideas. It was courgette for dinner every night, and in the end we were giving them to the chickens. That is the problem with a glut: you end up looking for anything that will eat it.
The rest of what is safe is on the safe food list, and the cucumber page is the nearest thing to this one.
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Can Dogs Eat Courgette? Yes, Raw or Cooked
Courgette is safe for dogs raw or cooked, and it brings a fair amount for something so thin: vitamins A, C and B6, potassium, magnesium, and the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, which are the ones associated with eye and skin health.
The numbers are modest because the vegetable is almost entirely water. Raw courgette with the skin on is about 17 calories, 3.1g of carbohydrate, 1g of fibre and 1.2g of protein per 100g, and 95% of it is water. Cooked, it drops to 15 calories per 100g because cooking adds water rather than taking anything away.
That makes it a useful thing for a dog that needs to feel full without taking on calories, and a fairly pointless thing for a dog that does not.
The preparation is simple. Wash it, because you are eating the skin and whatever is on it. Take the stem off, which is tough and hard to digest. Cut it into pieces rather than handing over a chunk, because a large raw piece is a choking hazard and a blockage risk for a small dog.
On raw against cooked, we differ slightly. I would give it raw and I think a dog gets more out of chewing it. The published advice is that cooked is easier to digest, less likely to cause an upset stomach or diarrhoea, and safer if there is any bacteria on it. Both are true, and cooked is the better choice for a dog with a sensitive gut.
The Bitter One Is the Real Risk
This is the part almost nobody mentions, and it is the only thing on this page that could genuinely hurt a dog.
Courgettes are in the squash family, and some members of that family produce compounds called cucurbitacins. They are what make a bitter squash bitter, and they have a drastic purgative effect on the intestines. Ornamental gourds are the obvious danger, but the warning extends to edible squash, and it says plainly that among edible varieties such as courgette, some varieties and crossings can carry the same toxicity.
The symptoms come on within 12 hours and they are not mild: vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, in some cases haemorrhagic diarrhoea. They can be intense in how often they happen or in how severe they are, and they can persist for one to five days. The toxic dose is not known, which is exactly why the advice is not to test it.
The useful part is that you have a test, and it costs nothing: taste it. Bitterness is the indicator that a squash should not be eaten. If the courgette you are about to hand over tastes bitter to you, it does not go to the dog. That is a better safety rule than any amount of portion measurement.
I did not know about any of this before I looked it up, which is worth admitting, because a garden glut is exactly the situation where somebody feeds a lot of courgette without tasting a single one.
If a pet does eat something and starts vomiting, what to do when a pet eats something dangerous covers the sequence, and it starts with a phone call.
The Garden Glut
A glut is the situation that actually creates risk, and it is worth saying so because it is the opposite of how people think about vegetables.
Nobody overfeeds a courgette they paid for. They overfeed the ones arriving faster than they can cook them, which is what happened to us: a few plants, an August, and suddenly there is more courgette than anybody wants. That is when a dog gets a bowl of it rather than a sliver, and that is when the gas, bloating and diarrhoea arrive, even from a perfectly good courgette.
It is also when a bitter one is most likely to slip through, because you are processing so many that you stop tasting them.
If you are on a sit during a glut, the chickens are the better destination. Ours got a lot of courgette that summer and were delighted about it.
The wider version of that is feeding the wrong amount on a sit, and a glut is the most common way to get it wrong.
The Thing You Add Is the Problem
Courgette itself is about as harmless as food gets. What happens to it in a kitchen is where the trouble starts.
Fried courgette is out, because the oil brings the fat and the fat brings pancreatitis into play. Courgette bread and cake are out, because they bring sugar, oil and butter along with the vegetable. Butter and salt on a steamed courgette are out for the same reason.
And the one people forget: if you are cooking courgette alongside onion and garlic, the pan is no longer dog-safe even if the courgette is. Those two are toxic to dogs rather than merely unwise, and they travel.
It is not the vegetable, it is what you mix it with. That is the line I would leave somebody with, because it applies to every vegetable on this site and it is the reason a plain piece is safe and a delicious one is not.
The same point decides whether a bowl of pasta is safe: the ingredient is fine and the dish around it is not.
How Much Courgette
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. Courgette is so low in calories that the limit is really about not displacing a proper meal and not overwhelming a stomach with fibre and water.
The published portions are given once a day rather than as an occasional extra.
| Dog weight | Portion per day | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 5 kg (2 to 10 lb) | 1 teaspoon | about 1 kcal |
| 5 to 9 kg (11 to 20 lb) | 2 teaspoons | about 2 kcal |
| 9 to 23 kg (21 to 50 lb) | 3 teaspoons | about 3 kcal |
| 23 to 41 kg (51 to 90 lb) | 2 tablespoons | about 5 kcal |
| 41 kg and over (91 lb and over) | 3 tablespoons | about 8 kcal |
Those calorie figures are our arithmetic on the published energy value of 17 kcal per 100g, with a teaspoon assumed to be about 5g. The portions are the ones the sources publish.
If you want a vegetable that a dog gets something more substantial from, green beans and pumpkin both bring more fibre per mouthful, and carrots at least give a dog something to chew.
On a Sit: A Snack, Nothing More
I think of vegetables like this as a snack and nothing beyond that. I would not make one a regular part of an animal's diet, and I would not give it as anything other than something different to try.
On a sit I try to stick to what the pet is actually meant to eat. The diet it came with is not a starting point to improve on. If the owner has left a routine, the routine is the job, and a piece of courgette is at best neutral.
That is not caution for its own sake. If a dog has diarrhoea after I introduce something, the conversation with the owner is much worse than the conversation where I say I fed it exactly what they left. There is no version where the courgette was worth that.
And the rule under all of it is the one I keep coming back to: if I am unsure about something, I do not give it. That has covered more situations than any specific knowledge I have about food.
The habit that makes it easy is asking before you improvise, and the pre-sit question list is where that starts.
The other vegetables already covered are broccoli and tomatoes, and each has its own version of the point about what you add to it.
Where This Research Comes From
The sources behind this page:
PetMD: Can Dogs Eat Zucchini?, the raw and cooked safety verdict, the nutrient and fibre benefits, the raw chunk choking and blockage warning, the fried and breaded exclusions, the stem removal and washing steps, the puppy note and the portion table.
Domes Pharma: Coloquintes et chien, chat, the cucurbitacin toxicity, the fact that edible courgette varieties and crossings can carry it, the unknown toxic dose, the 12-hour onset and the one to five day course of symptoms.
USDA FoodData Central: Squash, summer, zucchini, includes skin, raw, the calorie, carbohydrate, fibre, protein and water figures, with the cooked comparison from the same series.
Conclusion
Courgette is safe, cheap and almost entirely water. Raw or cooked, plain and cut up, it is a harmless snack and not much more.
The bitter test is the one thing worth remembering. Taste it before you hand it over, and if it is bitter it goes in the bin rather than in a bowl.
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 courgette?
Yes, raw or cooked, as long as it is plain with no oil, salt or seasoning. It is about 17 calories and 95% water per 100g, with vitamins A, C and B6 plus fibre.
Can dogs eat raw courgette?
Yes, in small pieces. Cooked is easier to digest and less likely to cause an upset stomach, and cooking also deals with any bacteria on the skin, so cooked is the better choice for a sensitive dog.
Why is a bitter courgette dangerous for dogs?
Bitterness comes from cucurbitacins, which have a drastic purgative effect on the intestines. Some courgette varieties and crossings carry them, the toxic dose is unknown, and symptoms start within 12 hours and can last up to five days.
Can dogs eat courgette skin?
Yes, and it is where much of the fibre and antioxidants are. Wash it well first to remove dirt and any pesticide residue.
Can dogs eat courgette bread or fried courgette?
No. Courgette bread brings sugar, oil and butter, and fried courgette brings fat that can trigger pancreatitis. Plain steamed, roasted or raw is the version to give.
Can puppies eat courgette?
Yes, in small cooked pieces. Puppies have more sensitive stomachs and stricter nutritional needs, so check with a vet first and start with very little.
How much courgette can a dog have?
A teaspoon for a dog under 5kg up to three tablespoons for a giant, once a day, and inside the 10% of daily calories that treats are allowed.
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