Is Icing Safe for Dogs? Why a Cookie Baked for Dogs Beats Iced Shortbread

Put two frosted dog cookies side by side and you often can't tell them apart. Same glossy frosting and same bone shape. Turn the packets over and one is a biscuit baked for dogs, while the other is much closer to shortbread wearing a coat of sugar and fat. Here is what is really under the frosting, what the numbers say, and how to tell the two apart in about a minute.

Plain icing is almost pure sugar, and a dog has no use for it. The bigger risks sit around it: "sugar free" icing that can hide xylitol, which is dangerous to dogs, and the fat and kilojoules that pile up when a whole shortbread biscuit is iced or dipped. A cookie baked for dogs, with a frosting designed for dogs, avoids all three.

We should say plainly where we stand. Huds and Toke has been baking dog cookies on Queensland's Sunshine Coast for more than a decade, so we have a dog in this fight. We are not veterinarians. Every figure about our own cookies below is printed on our labels, every other figure links to the source it came from, and where the evidence runs out, we say so rather than stretch it.

Is icing safe for dogs?

Plain sugar icing is not toxic to dogs, but it isn't food a dog needs either. A lick of birthday cake icing is not an emergency. The problems are what icing is made of, what it is often spread on, and what "sugar free" versions can contain.

Sugar icing: not poisonous, just sugar

The classic hard white icing on biscuits and cakes is royal icing, which Wikipedia describes as a hard white icing "made from softly beaten egg whites, icing sugar (powdered sugar), and sometimes lemon or lime juice". Icing sugar is, as you would expect, sugar. Australia's food composition database, run by Food Standards Australia New Zealand, lists white icing sugar at 100 g of sugars per 100 g. Once a royal icing sets and the egg white's water has gone, our own calculation from the standard recipe puts it at about 97 to 98% sugar by weight.

Does a dog need that? The US-based MSD Veterinary Manual is clear that "dietary carbohydrates are not considered essential nutrients in the diet for adult, nonreproducing dogs and cats". The same chapter adds that "an overload of simple sugars in the GI tract may cause adverse changes in intestinal metabolism, including osmotic diarrhea and flatulence". RSPCA Australia makes a related point, noting that sugary foods "can be associated with metabolic diseases when fed in excess".

The "sugar free" icing trap: xylitol

This is the one that matters most. Xylitol is a sweetener used in place of sugar, and it is dangerous to dogs. Australia's Animal Poisons Helpline puts it bluntly: "Xylitol is a particularly common sugar substitute but unfortunately it can be deadly to dogs." Its list of where xylitol turns up includes "Any baked good (cakes, muffins, cookies, pastries, etc) where xylitol is substituted for sugar".

RSPCA Australia explains why: "xylitol is metabolised differently by dogs", and the resulting hypoglycaemia "can lead to seizures and even death. In some dogs, xylitol consumption causes liver failure and clotting problems". The Helpline also notes it can be labelled "birch sugar or sometimes written as E967". So never treat a human "sugar free" icing, frosting or cookie as a dog-safe swap until you have checked the label for xylitol.

What else hides in human icing and decorations

Butter and cream cheese frostings add a lot of fat. Chocolate icing and chocolate-flavoured coatings contain cocoa, and RSPCA Australia says theobromine in cocoa "is toxic to dogs and other animals at certain doses". Some cheaper coatings are "compound chocolate", which still contains cocoa, so a brown coating is not automatically carob. Our guide on whether dogs can eat carob covers the carob and chocolate difference in detail.

What dog-safe frosting looks like

A frosting made for dogs starts from a different question. Not "how do we make this glossy and sweet?" but "what can sit on a dog biscuit, hold its shape in an Australian summer, and add nothing a dog doesn't need?" Ours is built from low-fat yoghurt powder and carob powder, among some other proprietary ingredients, and the label reads "No added salt, sugar or preservatives". More on exactly what that means, including the honest caveats, further down.

Two very different things sold as a "dog cookie"

The difference isn't the look. It is which species the recipe was written for. One cookie starts from the dog and works backwards. The other starts from the human bakery, gets shaped like a bone, and is given a coat.

The cookie baked for dogs

It begins with a flour dogs digest well, a flavour dogs love, and just enough moisture to bind the dough. RSPCA Australia notes that dogs have evolved from their wolf ancestors, "including developing an ability to digest starch and fat", and MSD reports that dogs digest properly cooked starches "with > 90% efficiency". Researchers in Sweden have tied that ability to extra copies of the pancreatic amylase gene, AMY2B, which varies between breeds and individual dogs. A well-baked flour is a sensible base. Added sugar is not needed.

The shortbread-style biscuit with a coat

Shortbread is traditionally made from "one part white sugar, two parts butter and three to four parts plain wheat flour". Australia's food composition database describes commercial shortbread-style biscuits as ones where "Ingredients may include butter, wheat flour, sugar and rice flour", and measures them at 26.3 g of fat and 20.4 g of sugars per 100 g. Cut that into a bone, then ice it or dip it, and the coat adds a second layer of sugar, fat or both.

To be fair to everyone, not every iced dog biscuit is shortbread underneath, and some small bakeries use sugar-free icings too. The point is not that one category is always bad. It is that the look of a cookie tells you nothing, and the label tells you nearly everything.

Plus, if a label doesn't tell you where the cookie is made, for example "Australian Made", you can't be sure where it comes from. If it says "packed for" or "Packaged in Australia" and doesn't say it is Australian Made, there are further questions you should be asking.

What icing and coatings are actually made of

There are two common coats on a decorated biscuit: sugar icing, and a "compound coating" of sugar, hard vegetable fat and milk solids. Both are designed to look good and last on a shelf. Neither was designed around a dog.

What is a compound coating?

A compound coating is the glossy, snappy coat you see on a lot of confectionery. Wikipedia's entry on compound chocolate explains that it uses "less-expensive hard vegetable fats such as coconut oil or palm kernel oil in place of the more expensive cocoa butter". Yoghurt and carob versions work on the same principle, with milk solids or carob in place of cocoa.

The US Department of Agriculture's composition database gives a sense of what that means per 100 g. A yoghurt confectioner's coating is 62.4 g sugars and 27.0 g fat. A carob confection, despite being labelled "unsweetened" in the database, is 34.1 g sugars and 31.4 g fat, and 29.0 g of that fat is saturated. These are generic US reference values, not measurements of any Australian product, but they show why a coat is rarely a light touch.

Is palm kernel oil bad for dogs?

It isn't toxic. It is simply a very saturated, very energy-dense fat. Palm kernel oil "is semi-solid at room temperature" and is "more saturated than palm oil", and USDA figures put it at 81.5 g of saturated fat per 100 g, against 51.4 g in salted butter. Being semi-solid at room temperature is also why fat-based coatings soften and smudge on a hot Australian day.

Side by side: a cookie baked for dogs vs iced shortbread

On the numbers, the cookie baked for dogs carries less than half the fat, about twice the protein, and fewer kilocalories per 100 g. Our figures are from our own label. The shortbread figures are from Australia's food composition database, and the iced and coated versions are our estimates, built from that data and the USDA's.

Why "dog basis"? Human food databases calculate energy one way. Pet food labels state metabolisable energy, usually calculated with the "modified Atwater" factors, which give lower numbers for the same food. Comparing our 359 kcal label against the database's 2110 kJ (about 504 kcal) for shortbread would exaggerate the gap, so every estimate in the chart and table is calculated the way pet labels usually are. On the database's own human basis, shortbread with a carob-style coating comes out at about 515 kcal per 100 g.

One honest limit. This comparison holds against shortbread-style, butter-rich biscuits. A plain hard-baked dog biscuit with a thin dip can be lower in energy than ours, so we are not claiming our cookies are lower in kilojoules than every decorated treat on the shelf. The fat difference against shortbread is the most robust finding, and it is large.

Why the fat and sugar matter to a dog

The Australian Veterinary Association states that "Almost half of dogs and one third of cats in Australia are overweight or obese". That figure traces back to a University of Sydney-led study of 2,661 dogs seen at Australian vet clinics, published in 2005, which found 41 per cent were overweight or obese.

It is also largely in our hands. In a University of Melbourne survey of 153 Victorian vet practices, vets felt 97% of cases came down to human factors "such as diet, exercise and owner attitudes". RSPCA Australia warns that "obesity can lead to other serious health complications such as heart failure and diabetes".

Rich, fatty food and pancreatitis

Fat matters for another reason. The AVA describes pancreatitis as a condition "which often occurs as a result of eating rich, high-fat foods", and RSPCA Australia notes that feeding fat trimmings "may be associated with the development of pancreatitis". The research picture is more complicated than "fat causes pancreatitis", and the MSD Veterinary Manual says that "For most cases of pancreatitis no specific cause can be identified". We are not suggesting a shortbread biscuit causes it. We are saying vets consistently link rich, fatty food with it, and a cookie doesn't need to be rich to be loved.

Dogs can taste sweet, which is exactly the problem

Unlike cats, dogs have a working sweet taste receptor. A 2005 genetics study found that "dogs have a human-like T1R2 structure" and "an avidity for sweet carbohydrates", while cats have lost the gene. An older study of young beagles found that "Lactose, fructose, and sucrose were well accepted". This means that sugar can make a treat more appealing to a dog, even though it is unhealthy for them. That is palatability, not nutrition, and not in the dog's best interest. It is why a recipe built for dogs should earn its enthusiasm with other ingredients, chosen with the health of the dog in mind, not the ease of manufacture.

What about teeth?

Here we want to be careful, because this is where a lot of articles overclaim. Cavities are uncommon in dogs. In one Canadian veterinary dentist's patient records, "5.25% of adult canine patients had one or more caries lesion", and the same author notes a diet "high in highly refined and easily fermentable carbohydrates will favor the development of caries". An Australian veterinary dental practice puts it practically: "Sticky foods cling to teeth and promote bacterial growth." In dogs, gum disease is the bigger issue. Our read: sugar is not doing your dog's teeth any favours, because the higher the sugar and fat content, the softer the cookie, and a soft cookie made to look like a dog treat is a problem for the reasons above. Hard chews, including hard cookies made for dogs, along with brushing, are ideal for a doggy dental plan.

Inside a Huds and Toke frosted cookie, ingredient by ingredient

Straight off the label, in the order it is printed. This is the recipe shared by our frosted range, including our Sparkle Cookies, Frosted Doggy Bones, Freckle Cookies and Doggy Donuts. Every recipe in our bakery is written for dogs, not adapted from a human one.

The label reads "No added salt, sugar or preservatives", with 12% crude protein, 10% crude fat and 359 kcal per 100 g. It is also built to hold its shape in warm weather, which is the thinking behind our no-melt frosting. It won't smudge on your carpet, lose its shape in hot weather or leave stains on your clothes.

The frosted range

Cookies designed for dogs

Our cookies are hard baked for dental benefits, with a hard, no-melt frosting that makes them look awesome in photos, protects you from nasty stains from smudging and melting, and gives your dog an extra crunch. Plus, it's fun to have pretty things!

Frosted

Small Woof Bone

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Frosted

Doggy Vovo

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Frosted

Frosted Doggy Bones

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Donut

Big Doggy Donuts

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Small dogs

Little Doggy Donuts

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Frosted

Little Love Heart Cookies

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Frosted

Magic Sprinkle Bones

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Birthdays

Birthday Present Cookie

12% protein, 10% fat, 359 kcal per 100 g on the label. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Prefer no frosting at all? Our peanut butter cookies use the same dog-first base with nothing on top: whole wheat flour, xylitol-free peanut butter, canola oil, apple cider vinegar, potato and tapioca starch and bicarbonate soda.

No frosting at all

Peanut butter cookies, nothing on top

The same dog-first base, baked plain. The simplest cookies we make.

No frosting

Nutty Paws

Whole wheat flour, xylitol-free peanut butter, canola oil, apple cider vinegar. 12% protein, 10% fat.

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Carob

Nutty Carob Paws

The same peanut butter base with carob powder baked in. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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Bulk

Nutty Bone Cookies 1 kg

Hard-baked peanut butter bones, about 75 to the kilo. No added salt, sugar or preservatives.

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How much cookie can my dog have?

Treats of every kind should stay under 10% of your dog's daily calories. The World Small Animal Veterinary Association's Global Nutrition Committee says "Treats should always make up less than 10% of a dog's daily calorie intake." Its guide suggests about 47 kcal of treats a day for an average healthy 10 kg adult dog.

That chart turns the WSAVA figures into grams. A 10 kg dog's daily pet treat allowance is about 13 g of our frosted cookie, or about 10 g of shortbread with a carob-style coating. Put another way, the same allowance buys about 30% more of the cookie baked for dogs. You can always manage your dog's intake by breaking larger cookies into pieces and sharing them over a few days.

If you like doing the maths yourself, MSD calculates a dog's resting energy requirement as 70 multiplied by its body weight in kilograms raised to the power of 0.75, and lists 1.6 times that figure for a neutered (desexed) adult. For a 10 kg dog that is about 630 kcal a day, and 10% is about 63 kcal, a little more generous than WSAVA's table. MSD also notes that any given animal may need "as much as 30% more or less of the calories calculated". Your Australian vet can give you the right number for your own dog.

How to read a dog treat label in 60 seconds

Turn the packet over and check seven things: the first ingredients, sugar, fat, sweeteners, salt, the analysis panel and who made it. It takes about a minute, and it tells you far more than the photo on the front.

1. Read the first three ingredients. Many Australian pet food labels are written to Australian Standard AS 5812, and the Pet Food Industry Association of Australia says "The Standard advises that pet food labels list the ingredients (with the exception of water) in descending order (by weight)". The first few ingredients are what the treat mostly is.
2. Look for sugar under its other names. Australia's food code, which applies to human food but makes a handy checklist, counts dextrose, glucose syrups, maltodextrin, molasses and icing sugar among its "sugars". Honey is another common one.
3. Find the fat. Palm kernel oil, vegetable fat, hydrogenated oil or butter sitting high on the list, next to sugar, usually means a coating or a shortbread base.
4. Check the sweetener. Xylitol, birch sugar or E967 means put it back. It is poisonous to dogs.
5. Look for added salt. Check whether salt appears in the ingredient list, and compare the salt figure on the analysis panel if there is one.
6. Read the analysis panel. Compare crude fat and kcal per 100 g, not per pack or per piece. Pieces vary wildly in size.
7. See who made it, and where. A maker's name and an Australian contact address you can actually reach are a good sign.

When a wheat cookie isn't the right cookie

Our frosted cookies are made with whole wheat flour and yoghurt powder, so they are not the answer for a dog with a diagnosed wheat or dairy allergy. Worth keeping in proportion, though. An international review found that among dogs presented to a vet for any reason, the prevalence of food allergy affecting the skin was "1 to 2%". Among 297 dogs that already had a diagnosed food allergy, the most commonly reported triggers were beef (34%), dairy (17%), chicken (15%) and wheat (13%).

That is 13% of allergic dogs, not 13% of all dogs. It is also worth noticing that shortbread contains both wheat and butter, so it is no escape from either. If your vet has confirmed a wheat allergy, our grain-free dog treats and wheat-free range are worth a look, but check every ingredient with your vet first, because some grain-free recipes still include dairy or cheese.

No wheat in the recipe

Grain-free cookies

Made without grains. If your dog has a diagnosed allergy, check every ingredient on the label with your vet first.

Grain free

Grain Free Big Doggy Donuts

Tapioca, peanut butter, vegetable protein, coconut flour, flaxseed. 21% protein, 11% fat.

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Grain free

Golden Paws

Tapioca, coconut flour, apple, cheese powder, turmeric. 11.6% protein, 9.9% fat.

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Grain free

Omega Paws

Tapioca, coconut flour, whole mackerel, chia seeds and beetroot. 14.5% protein, 12.8% fat.

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Want something with a little more going on? Our hemp cookies use wholemeal flour and hemp seed meal with real mackerel and spinach, or turkey, chicken and turmeric.

Something different

Hemp seed cookies with real fish or meat

Wholemeal flour and hemp seed meal with mackerel and spinach, or turkey, chicken and turmeric. No added salt, sugar or preservatives on the label.

Hemp

Hemp Cookies, Mackerel and Spinach

Wholemeal flour, hemp seed meal, mackerel, spinach. 14.6% protein, 9.2% fat.

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Hemp

Hemp Cookies, Turkey and Turmeric

Wholemeal flour, hemp seed meal, turkey and chicken meat, turmeric. 13.4% protein, 8% fat.

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Birthdays, gift boxes and celebration cookies

A decorated cookie is celebration food, and that is exactly how we'd like you to use ours. Birthdays, gotcha days, Christmas stockings, a thank-you for the dog walker. The point of baking them for dogs is that a special day doesn't have to come with a shortbread-sized helping of fat and sugar.

A few tips from our kitchen. Break big cookies into pieces for small dogs. Count the cookie in the day's treat budget. At a dog party, keep the human cake well out of reach, and our dog birthday party guide has the rest. The University of Sydney's Dr Anne Fawcett warns that "A sudden influx of fatty festive foods can wreak havoc on their gut", which is worth remembering every December.

For celebrations

Gift boxes of cookies baked for dogs

Hand-decorated cookies boxed for birthdays, gotcha days and thank-yous. Same dog-formulated base inside.

Gift

Pink Mixed Cookies Gift Box

Four hand-decorated cookies in a clear gift box, all on the same dog-formulated base.

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Gift

Pastel Little Doggy Donuts Gift Box

Six little donuts in pastel frosting, sized for small mouths.

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Gift

Love and Hearts Gift Box

Heart and bone cookies for Valentine's, gotcha days and thank-yous.

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For more gifting ideas, see our guide to dog gift boxes and hampers, or browse the full dog bakery and dog birthday cakes.

Is icing safe for dogs? Your questions answered

The questions we're asked most, answered short. If your dog has eaten something with xylitol or a lot of chocolate, stop reading and ring your Australian vet or the Animal Poisons Helpline on 1300 869 738.

The last word

From across the room, a frosted cookie baked for dogs and an iced shortbread look almost identical. The difference is underneath: which species the recipe was written for. One is a wholemeal, peanut butter biscuit with a yoghurt and carob frosting and no added sugar, salt or preservatives, baked firm to help with dental benefits. The other is sugar, butter and flour with more sugar, or sugar and hard fat, poured over the top, and soft to chew, which does not provide any benefits for your dog's dental health. Your dog will happily eat either. Only one of them was made with your dog in mind.

Whichever you buy, read the label, skip anything with xylitol, count every cookie in the day's treats, and check with your Australian vet if your dog has a weight, pancreas or allergy concern.

Plus, where you can, be sure the label says "Made in Australia". This gives you confidence in the quality and helps Australian businesses, which are run by people. So it helps people as well as their pets!

References

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7. RSPCA Australia. Spring cleaning? 6 pet dangers to throw out and avoid. rspca.org.au
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14. Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Sugar. foodstandards.gov.au
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21. WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee (2024). Feeding treats to your dog (international). PDF
22. Li X et al (2005). Pseudogenization of a sweet-receptor gene accounts for cats' indifference toward sugar. PLoS Genetics 1(1):e3 (overseas). PLoS
23. Ferrell F (1984). Preference for sugars and nonnutritive sweeteners in young beagles. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 8(2):199-203 (overseas). PubMed
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25. Hale FA (2009). Dental caries in the dog. Canadian Veterinary Journal 50(12):1301-1304 (overseas). PMC
26. Olivry T, Mueller RS (2017). Critically appraised topic on adverse food reactions of companion animals (3): prevalence of cutaneous adverse food reactions in dogs and cats. BMC Veterinary Research 13:51 (overseas). PubMed
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28. US Department of Agriculture, FoodData Central (overseas): 167569 confectioner's coating, yogurt; 167973 carob candy; 171422 palm kernel oil; 173410 butter, salted; 173755 carob flour; 172183 egg white. 167569, 167973, 171422, 173410, 173755, 172183
29. Wikipedia. Shortbread; Royal icing; Compound chocolate; Palm kernel oil; Xylitol. Shortbread, Royal icing, Compound chocolate, Palm kernel oil, Xylitol
30. Huds and Toke product labels: Carob and Yoghurt Frosted Sparkle Cookies, Nutty Paws Dog Cookies (accessed 17 September 2026). Sparkle Cookies, Nutty Paws