How your pups can benefit from pumpkin waste!

95% of the pumpkins in the UK are grown for the halloween season. However, the way we carve pumpkins and throw them away leads to 13 million pumpkins going to waste each year. However, this does not have to be the case as pumpkin is a fantastic treat to give to our dogs with a variety of health benefits.

Pumpkin is packed with micronutrients and fibre, which can sooth your dogs digestive tract, helping with both reducing diarrhoea and constipation for our dogs.

Pumpkins also contain Vitamin A, C and E which helps with eyesight, skin condition and helps to boost their immune system. Even pumpkin seeds can be great for our dogs as they have omega 3 fatty acids which have anti-inflammatory properties and can also help prevent urinary incontinence.

Ways To Give Pumpkin to Your Dogs

• Dogs can have pumpkin chunks or puree. To make the puree, boil chucks of pumpkin until soft and then put in a food blender.

• Chunks or pureed pumpkin can be put into a kong and given to dogs.They can be frozen to make it last longer. There’s plenty of kong pumpkin filler ideas such a this one online, give it a try!

• Pureed pumpkin can be spread of a licki matt.

• Mix mashed pumpkin with mashed banana and put in the freezer to make doggy ice cream.

• Make pumpkin treats by cutting small cubes of pumpkin and then roasting in the oven and then leaving to chill. These can be made in batch and frozen to give later.

• Make some pumpkin doggy biscuits with this recipe!

• Mix pumpkin in with your dogs kibble to add some extra flavour and as a supplement. 

• Pumpkin seeds can also be saved and used to treat worms. Read more here