plain cooked egg

Cooking removes both objections to eggs at once: heat denatures the avidin in the white so it can no longer bind biotin, and it kills Salmonella. What is left is one of the most digestible complete proteins a dog can eat, along with biotin, riboflavin, selenium and vitamin A. That makes plain cooked egg a genuinely good treat — useful for tempting a picky eater or as a high-value training reward. The preparation is where American kitchens go wrong. Scrambled eggs made the way people eat them are cooked in butter or oil and finished with salt, pepper, cheese, or worst of all onion or garlic powder, and those additions are the problem, not the egg. Hard-boil it, or dry-scramble it in a nonstick pan with nothing added. Cook the yolk through rather than leaving it runny. On portions, a medium dog can have about one egg two or three times a week, and a small dog a third to a half of an egg at a time. Keep all treats at or under ten percent of daily calories; a whole large egg is a meaningful share of that budget for a ten-pound dog. Ground shell is sometimes offered as a calcium source, but sharp fragments can irritate the throat or gut, so cook it, grind it fine, and use very little. Loose stool after a sudden large serving means cut back; if it lasts more than a day, call your veterinarian.