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Originally Posted by Ellie May  There is scientific evidence to suggest that garlic destroys hemoglobin in dogs. Unfortunately I can't post an excerpt from the article becaue I paid for it. A small amount of garlic occasionally should be fine. No way would I choose to actually give garlic pills. |
I've found a a few articles on Pubmed regarding this. (Pubmed is the site I always go to when looking up research articles for my biology classes.) The full text for most articles are only available if you have a subscription (through school for me) but there is one article that is free to the public. Here is a link to the page that has the excerpt as well as as the PDF download:
Isolation and Identification of Sodium 2-Propenyl Thiosulfate from Boiled Garlic (Allium sativum) That Oxidizes Canine Erythrocytes
It actually starts off saying that it has already been shown that garlic causes damage to red blood cells in dogs. Their research is more about determining what compounds in the garlic cause that damage.
They reference another research article from the American Journal of Veterinary Research that doesn't have free full-text. However, you can read the summary online here:
Hematologic changes associated with the appearance of eccentrocytes after intragastric administration of garlic extract to dogs
In their research, they gave dogs the equivalent of 5 grams of garlic per kilogram (or 2.27 grams per pounds) of dog body weight . Just from a quick Google search, it loks like a garlic clove is on average 5-7 grams. So that would be like feeding 3 garlic cloves per pound.
One article I've seen online promoting the use of garlic in preventing fleas says to use 1 garlic clove per 30 pounds of body weight, not even near the dosage of garlic the researchers found to be harmful.
All that being said, I'm a total worry wart and may never actually use garlic myself. But I wanted to post all this because I thought it would be good for everyone to see both sides of things to decide for themselves. Hope this helps!