Can Dogs Have Cherries? The Pit Isn't the Only Danger

Yes, most dogs can have a few fresh cherries, as long as the pit, stem and leaves are gone and you keep it small. The pit gets all the warnings, and fair enough, but a swallowed pit is usually more of a blockage risk than a poisoning (the cyanide only gets out if the pit is chewed or broken). The stems and leaves carry the same cyanide, and the ASPCA flags them as especially toxic while they're wilting. So no, the pit isn't the only danger. And the sugar in dried, canned and maraschino cherries, and in cherry pie, is its own problem.

Further down: how many your dog can have by size (there's a table), how to serve them, black, Rainier, tart, dried and maraschino cherries, pie and yogurt, puppies, and what to do if she ate cherries with pits. If she just ate a lot of pits, or chewed up stems or leaves, skip to "My dog ate cherries with pits: what to do" and call your vet now.

Can dogs eat cherries at all?

Fresh ones, yes, in small amounts, with the pit, stem and leaves taken out. That's where PetMD's vet-reviewed guide (Dr Jennifer Coates, DVM) lands, and it doesn't recommend canned, maraschino or flavored cherries. Dogster (vet-approved by Dr Paola Cuevas) says yes, but never the stems or pits.

Others are less relaxed. Purina's short answer is "no, but it's more complicated than that", Pet Poison Helpline says the risk "far outweighs the benefits", and the AKC says cherries "are not recommended" but that dogs can eat small amounts of cherry flesh. Still, all of them put the danger in the pit, stem and leaves, and none says the flesh is toxic. The ASPCA lists the cherry plant (Prunus species) as toxic to dogs, cats and horses because the stems, leaves and seeds contain cyanide, and its entry says nothing about the fruit.

As for what's in the fruit, not a lot, honestly. Sweet cherries (USDA FoodData Central, raw): 63 kcal, 12.8 g sugar and 2.1 g fiber per 100 g, plus 7 mg vitamin C and 222 mg potassium. One cherry weighs about 8 g, so about 5 kcal and about 1 g of sugar. PetMD mentions the antioxidants, vitamin C and fiber, and fine, but for a dog a cherry is a small sweet treat, not a health food.

Are cherry pits toxic to dogs?

Yes, if your dog chews one. The pit holds amygdalin, which the body turns into cyanide, but the cyanide part is the kernel, the true seed inside that hard shell (PetMD's stone fruits article, Dr Hanie Elfenbein), and Pet Poison Helpline says pits "will need to be broken open for the cyanide to be released". A pit swallowed whole "may not cause toxicity". The AKC calls a single pit "unlikely to cause poisoning". Purina: "one or two cherries, pit and all, aren't likely to cause them harm". Dogster says one pit won't do much harm, but many at once could.

How much are we talking? A 2014 Food Chemistry study (Bolarinwa and colleagues) measured amygdalin in fruit kernels and found 2.68 mg per gram in black cherry, 3.89 in red cherry and 14.37 in apricot. The Merck Veterinary Manual puts the lethal oral dose of hydrogen cyanide at about 2 mg per kg of body weight "in most animal species". Nobody publishes a dog-specific number of pits, though, no "X pits per pound" figure to lean on, so chewed pits are a vet call, not a math problem.

The everyday pit problem is mechanical. A pit can lodge in the gut and cause a blockage (AKC, Purina). It's a choking hazard for a dog that gulps without chewing (Dogster). And cherry stones are very hard, so biting into one can break a tooth (PetMD). A small dog is more easily blocked, but PetMD says don't assume size protects her either way, very small or very large, and Merck puts young large-breed dogs among the most likely to get a foreign body obstruction at all. It's the same story as the avocado pit, which is the biggest worry in that fruit too.

What about cherry stems, leaves and the tree in the yard?

Same cyanide, and wilted is worse. The ASPCA's cherry entry says stems, leaves and seeds contain cyanide, "particularly toxic in the process of wilting". Merck's list of cyanide plants includes chokecherry, pin cherry, wild black cherry and ornamental cherry. The USDA plant guide for wild black cherry (Prunus serotina, the native tree) says leaves, twigs, bark and seeds carry the cyanide compound, wilted leaves hold more of it than fresh ones, and the pitted fruit is edible.

The practical worry is the yard. A dog that chews on fallen branches or a pile of wilting leaves under a cherry tree is a bigger cyanide worry than a dog that ate a cherry. Chewing or crushing is what releases the compound (Merck).

Signs of cyanide poisoning (ASPCA): brick red gums, dilated pupils, difficulty breathing, panting, shock. Merck says they typically start 15 to 20 minutes to a few hours after she eats the plant material, so looking fine right away doesn't mean much. The full what-to-do list is in the later section.

How many cherries can a dog have?

A few, and not every day. PetMD's serving guide goes by weight: 1 cherry for a dog up to 10 lb, 2 up to 20, 3 up to 50, 4 up to 90, 5 past that, 2 to 3 times a week, all of your dog's treats combined under 10% of her daily food. Cut them into halves or quarters, especially for small breeds.

The 10% is a WSAVA rule (the World Small Animal Veterinary Association): treats no more than 10% of daily calories, charted by weight for an average healthy adult dog. A pitted sweet cherry is about 5 kcal (USDA: 8 g, 63 kcal per 100 g), so honestly the calorie math allows more per serving than the vets suggest. Both are in the table; the calorie column assumes cherries are her only treat that day.

The calorie column is a ceiling (14 kcal divided by about 5 kcal a cherry, rounded down, and so on). The PetMD column is what a vet-reviewed guide actually suggests. Go with the smaller number.

Too many at once and you get an upset stomach: diarrhea, vomiting, lack of appetite, lethargy, a painful or swollen belly (PetMD's list; Dogster: large quantities can cause stomach upset). If she has diabetes or extra weight, skip cherries. It's the sugar (PetMD).

Pitted, fresh or frozen: how to serve cherries to a dog

Fresh, ripe, washed, pitted, cut small. That's the whole method. PetMD wants pits, stems and leaves off and the fruit in small pieces, halves or quarters for a small dog (a whole cherry can choke her). Pit them yourself, knife or cherry pitter.

PetMD's ideas are kind of fun: a few pieces blended into a fruit smoothie, mixed into plain yogurt (sugar-free, xylitol-free, check the tub), or stuffed into a KONG. Frozen pieces turn up in its frozen-yogurt and smoothie ideas too, so freeze pitted halves for summer.

Don't hand her the whole bowl. Don't leave the stems and the little pile of pits where she can get them.

Black cherries, Rainier, tart cherries, dried and maraschino

Same fruit, same rules, mostly. Store "black cherries" are dark sweet cherries: pit out, stem off, small amounts. The kernels hold a bit less amygdalin than red, 2.68 against 3.89 mg per gram (Food Chemistry, 2014). The wild black cherry is a different thing, a native tree (Prunus serotina) whose wilted leaves, twigs and bark are the worry (see the tree section). Bing and Rainier (the yellow-red one) are sweet varieties too; Purina lists bing, rainier, black and maraschino together. Same pit, same rules.

Tart (sour) cherries have a little less sugar than sweet, raw: 50 kcal and 8.5 g per 100 g (USDA). Pit and stem still come out. A lot of them end up in a pie tin anyway, and pie is next.

Then there's the bag of dried cherries: 333 kcal and 67 g of sugar per 100 g for sweetened dried tart cherries (USDA), about five times fresh on both counts (no water left, and usually added sugar). A quarter cup (40 g) is roughly 133 kcal and 27 g of sugar. No vet source covers dried cherries specifically, so treat them like candy: skip, or one or two at most for a big dog. Watch for a stray pit in the bag.

No pit in maraschino cherries, honestly the one nice thing about them. The rest is sugar, 38.8 g per 100 g drained (USDA), so one 5 g cherry is about 8 kcal and 2 g of sugar. Purina, AKC and PetMD agree: no pit, but preserved, with a lot of added sugar; not toxic, but not healthy, and still not a good choice. Canned cherries in syrup, same answer (Purina, PetMD): skip canned fruit, for the added sugar and preservatives.

Cherry pie, cherry yogurt and other cherry-flavored things

Skip all of it. Dogster's avoid list is cherry pie, cherry ice cream, cherry candies, cherry pastries and chocolate-covered cherries; its advice is the plain raw fruit and nothing artificial.

Pie is sugar plus a buttery crust, and VCA says pancreatitis "may be triggered in some cases by a fatty meal". Chocolate-covered cherries add chocolate, its own poison. Sugar-free pie isn't safer: baked goods are one place xylitol turns up, and Pet Poison Helpline says even tiny doses can cause low blood sugar, starting within 10 to 60 minutes, and even death (the ASPCA adds possible liver damage, depending on the amount). The nutmeg in a recipe is a small amount, very unlikely to cause serious trouble beyond mild stomach upset (Pet Poison Helpline); a large amount can mean hallucinations, disorientation, a fast heart rate and high blood pressure, with signs lasting up to 48 hours. So a slice: no. A lick of filling off the plate: probably a stomach ache at most, but check the label if it was sugar-free.

Cherry yogurt is sugar (sometimes xylitol) on top of dairy, and the ASPCA says milk and dairy can cause diarrhea or digestive upset because pets don't have much lactase. PetMD's version: plain, sugar-free, xylitol-free yogurt with cherry pieces mixed in. Cherry juice? No vet source covers it, but it's sugar without the fiber, so skip it, along with cherry-flavored anything (candy, cough drops, soda, etc), which PetMD says to avoid for the added sugar and artificial ingredients. Read the label for xylitol. Cherry tomatoes are a different plant entirely; ripe ones are considered non-toxic in moderation, the toxins (solanine, tomatine) sitting mostly in the green parts (AKC).

Can puppies eat cherries?

Yes, in moderation, says PetMD, honestly the only vet source that mentions puppies at all (the AKC, Purina, Dogster and Pet Poison Helpline don't). A puppy's sensitive stomach may be more affected by the sugar.

For your puppy: pitted, quartered, one piece. Not a bowl. Skip it entirely while her stomach is still settling into puppy food. And a puppy chewing a cherry pit is chewing something hard enough to break a tooth (PetMD).

My dog ate cherries with pits: what to do

First, sort out how many your dog got into. One or two, pit and all: Purina says they aren't likely to cause harm. Maybe mild stomach upset or diarrhea. Watch for the blockage signs below, and Purina still says call your vet for instructions, signs or no signs. A handful or more, or she chewed pits, stems or leaves: call now, don't wait for signs. Pet Poison Helpline, Dogster and PetMD all say the same: vet (and helpline) immediately, even if she seems fine.

The numbers: ASPCA Animal Poison Control (888) 426-4435 (a consultation fee may apply) and Pet Poison Helpline (855) 764-7661 ($99 per incident). Stay calm, keep an eye on her, and don't make her vomit at home; PetMD says never induce vomiting yourself without talking to a vet first. The vet may do that at the clinic, ideally within 30 minutes to 2 hours of her eating them (AKC, PetMD).

Blockage signs, per VCA Animal Hospitals: vomiting, diarrhea, belly pain or tenderness, decreased appetite, straining to poop or producing only small amounts, lethargy, growling or snapping when you touch her belly. Vomiting with no stool is a strong sign (PetMD). They may show within 24 hours (AKC); swallowed objects typically take 10 to 48 hours to pass, depending on the object and her size. Time matters: a blockage often cuts off blood supply to that stretch of gut, and tissue can die if that's interrupted for more than a few hours (VCA). Not all pass on their own; vets consider surgery if it hasn't passed in 36 to 48 hours, X-rays show it isn't moving, or she's getting worse (Merck).

Then there's cyanide. The signs, from the Merck Veterinary Manual: bright red gums (Merck calls the blood "cherry red", which is kind of a grim coincidence), dilated pupils, panting or difficulty breathing, drooling, vomiting, muscle twitching, seizures, collapse, shock. Signs can begin within 15 to 20 minutes to a few hours (Merck) or within 24 hours (Pet Poison Helpline), and in large doses death can come within one to two hours. PetMD calls it a medical emergency: call the vet while you're driving there. Treatment is a vet job (hydroxocobalamin, sodium nitrite or sodium thiosulfate, plus oxygen in serious cases), and Merck says don't delay for a diagnosis. Go.

Should your dog have cherries at all?

For a healthy adult dog, a couple of pitted cherries now and then are fine, and she'll like them. Skip them for a dog with diabetes or extra weight (PetMD, because of the sugar), one whose stomach is already upset, or one who gulps food whole (choking, Dogster). The fuss is in the prep: pit, stem, wash, halve. If you'd rather not bother, that's a fine answer too. Check our dog food safety guide before you hand over any other fruit or snack.