Feeding & Nutrition

I cook eggs most mornings, and one Saturday I cracked one extra and slid it, plain and scrambled, into Roo's bowl before I'd thought it through or checked whether I should. He looked at me like I'd handed him a small cheque with his name on it, then inhaled it with the focus he usually reserves for the postman. Since then a Saturday egg has become a tiny ritual in our house, and because I'm the sort of person who researches everything before feeding it to a creature I love, I dug into whether it's actually good for him or just a treat wearing a virtuous costume.

Eggs are a near-complete protein. They carry amino acids, a useful spread of fatty acids, and a stack of vitamins in a shell that costs pennies at the corner shop and keeps for weeks in the fridge. For a dog, a cooked egg is genuinely useful food, not empty reward, and it's one of the few people foods I'm relaxed about giving without a second thought. The key word is cooked. Raw egg whites contain a protein called avidin, which can interfere with a dog's absorption of biotin, a B vitamin they need for skin and coat. Cooking switches that off completely, so I never serve them to him runny or raw, no matter how much he begs while the pan is still on the heat and the smell is doing its work.

I keep it plain, almost stubbornly so, because the additions are where people get into trouble. No salt, no butter, no oil, no awkward half-onion from the pan that I'd normally cook for myself and figure he won't notice. Just egg, scrambled dry in a non-stick pan, cooled on a plate so he doesn't burn his tongue, then into the bowl. Roo gets one, maybe two a week, not daily, because it's a supplement to his proper diet, not a replacement, and I'm careful it doesn't push his calories over for the day and undo the waistline work we've done with the measuring cup.

The part nobody mentions

Eggs are also a tidy way to sneak a pill down a dog who's onto the pill-in-cheese trick and watches you like a hawk the moment the medicine cupboard opens. Hide a tablet in a spoon of egg and most dogs never notice, because the texture and smell cover the capsule better than cheese does in my experience and the egg holds together. I learned this the hard way during a course of antibiotics, when every other hiding spot had been compromised and he'd started refusing anything that looked or felt the slightest bit suspicious in his bowl.

The shell gets talked up online as a calcium source if you grind it to a fine powder and sprinkle it on food. I've tried it. It works, technically, and it's free, but it's fiddly to do cleanly and the gritty texture puts some dogs right off their meal, which defeats the purpose. I'd rather feed a balanced commercial diet and skip the powdered shell unless a vet specifically suggests the extra calcium for a reason I can name and defend. There's no point turning a simple treat into a small production line in my kitchen that I'll abandon by next month.

One caveat worth stating plainly, because someone will read this and overdo it out of love: if your dog has a history of pancreatitis or runs sensitive to fat, check with the vet before making eggs a habit, even a weekly one. They're rich, and rich food is exactly what those dogs don't need more of, full stop, no matter how much they beg. Roo is a healthy mutt with an iron stomach and a great deal of opinion about breakfast, so for him the Saturday egg is pure bonus and a small bit of joy we both look forward to. None of this is medical advice dressed up as wisdom. It's a cheap, honest food I happen to cook anyway, repurposed for the dog who watches me from the doorway every time the pan heats up. He thinks it's a special treat reserved for him. I know it's just good food, and that's good enough for both of us on a Saturday morning.

The ritual has outlasted a few of my other good intentions, which tells me it's the right kind of habit, the easy kind you keep. Roo knows Saturday morning by now and stations himself by the cooker like a small supervisor with opinions. I don't mind. It's a cheap bit of joy for both of us, and in the long list of things I feed him, the egg might be the one we both look forward to most. Just keep it cooked, keep it plain, and keep it occasional, and everyone wins.