Can Dogs Eat Shrimp? Shells, Tails, Raw or Cooked and How Much

People ask us can dogs eat shrimp at nearly every show we work, and the answer is yes, plain shrimp with the shell and tail off is fine for most dogs in treat amounts. The trouble is almost never the shrimp. It is what we cook it in: butter and garlic, breading and salt, before it ever reaches the dog.

This page covers the parts people actually get stuck on, starting with shells and tails and raw against cooked. After that comes how much a small dog should get compared with a big one. We make a freeze-dried shrimp treat in Malvern, Pennsylvania, so there is a short section on what that is like too, but the guide comes first.

Shells and tails

Take them off. A shrimp shell is thin but it is stiff, and it does not soften much in a dog's mouth. Most dogs swallow a shrimp rather than chew it, so the shell goes down in one piece with sharp edges on it. The tail fan is the same material and the same problem. Peel the shrimp and pinch the tail off. If the legs or the dark line down the back are still there, take those too. It is not the garlic kind of problem. It is just stiff and sharp.

Freeze-dried shrimp sidesteps most of this, and we get to it below.

Raw, cooked or freeze-dried

Cooked plain is the easy answer for shrimp from the store. Boil or steam it with nothing in the water, let it cool, peel it, and hand it over. Grilled is fine if the grill was clean and the shrimp was not sitting in a marinade first.

Raw shrimp from the seafood counter is a different thing. It has been thawed and handled a few times by the time it gets to your kitchen, and we would not hand it to a dog as it is. The bag of frozen raw shrimp in your own freezer is the same story. Cook it plain first. Freeze-dried shrimp is the other way to go. Freeze-drying pulls the water out of raw shrimp under vacuum without cooking it, which is why the piece ends up light and crunchy instead of rubbery.

Seasoning is the real problem

Garlic and onion are the two to watch, and they are in nearly every shrimp dish a person would order. Scampi is butter and garlic. Cocktail sauce is horseradish and sugar. Popcorn shrimp and coconut shrimp are breading and fryer oil with a little shrimp inside. Cajun rubs and seafood seasoning blends are heavy on salt. None of these is a treat for a dog, so if the shrimp came off your plate the answer is probably no, even when the shrimp itself was fine.

If you want to share from dinner, pull a few shrimp out before the sauce goes on. Rinsing a seasoned shrimp under the tap does not get the garlic out of it. Plain means plain from the start.

How much shrimp by dog size

Shrimp is a treat, not a meal, and a common rule of thumb keeps all treats to about 10 percent of what a dog eats in a day. In practice that comes out to roughly this, counting medium cooked shrimp or small freeze-dried pieces:

• Small dogs under 20 pounds: one shrimp, broken up.
• Medium dogs, 20 to 50 pounds: two or three shrimp.
• Large dogs over 50 pounds: three to five shrimp.

Those are a few times a week numbers, not daily ones. A dog that gets shrimp every day will often stop finding it interesting, and the house will smell like it. Freeze-dried pieces weigh less than a cooked shrimp of the same size because the water is gone. For reference, the label on ours lists about 80.2 kcal per ounce.

The first time

Start with one piece, plain, on a day when nothing else new is going on. Then wait a day. If everything is normal, give a little more the next time. Shrimp is a new protein for most dogs, and shellfish does not agree with every dog, so the first few servings are a test rather than a reward. If your dog is on a special diet, or has had trouble with seafood before, ask your veterinarian before you start.

What our freeze-dried shrimp is like

If you want shrimp without the peeling and the cooking, freeze-dried is the other route. Ours is Freeze-Dried Raw Shrimp, and the only ingredient is whole raw shrimp. We freeze-dry it in small batches in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and it comes in one 1.5 ounce bag.

The pieces are small whole shrimp, light and crunchy, with no shells to remove. On our own scorecard it gets 4 of 5 for crunch and 3 of 5 for training value. It works as a training reward, and crumbled over a bowl it works as a meal topper. We list it for adult dogs of all sizes, and it is sized for cats as well, so one bag can cover both animals in the house. The label says to feed it as a treat or meal topper, not as a complete diet. It also says to keep fresh water out at all times and to supervise while feeding. It is listed with our other freeze-dried treats for dogs, and if you are weighing shrimp against another shellfish, the scallop guide covers the other one we get asked about.

Storing shrimp

Cooked plain shrimp keeps in a covered container in the refrigerator for a day or two. After that it starts to smell, and a dog's nose will tell you before yours does. Freeze it in a bag if you cooked too much. Freeze-dried shrimp is simpler. Reseal the bag after opening and keep it cool and dry. Keep it away from the sink and the dishwasher steam, since moisture is the one thing that turns a crunchy piece soft. The longer version is in how to store freeze-dried treats.

We built a separate site on this one treat: exoticdogtreats.com goes deeper on shrimp than this page does, and it sells the same bag.

Shrimp questions

Can dogs eat shrimp shells?

We say no. The shell is stiff and sharp, and most dogs swallow shrimp without chewing, so peel it first. The legs and the tail fan come off at the same time.

What about the tails?

Same answer. The tail is shell. Pinch it off before the shrimp goes to the dog, and keep tail-on shrimp from party platters out of reach.

Can dogs eat raw shrimp?

Not from the counter or the freezer. Cook it plain first. Our freeze-dried shrimp is whole raw shrimp with the water taken out, and its label says to feed it as a treat or meal topper.

How much shrimp can a dog eat?

Treat amounts, a few times a week. One shrimp for a small dog, two or three for a medium dog, three to five for a large one, with all treats together kept near 10 percent of the day's food.

Can puppies have shrimp?

Once a puppy is on solid food, a small piece of plain cooked shrimp is handled the same way as any new food: one piece, then wait a day. We list our own freeze-dried shrimp for adult dogs.

Can cats have the same shrimp?

Yes. Plain cooked shrimp with the shell off works for cats the same way, in smaller amounts, and our freeze-dried shrimp is sized for both dogs and cats.

Is fried or popcorn shrimp okay for a dog?

No. The breading and the fryer oil are the problem, and the shrimp inside is usually small and salted. It is not something to share on purpose.