Best Potato Chips for Dogs
PUBLISHED
Your dog has located a chip. The chip is on the floor. Now what.
The salt problem
Dogs should not eat potato chips. Salt is the headline issue. Onion and garlic powder are the buried lede — both are toxic to dogs in cumulative amounts.
This guide is not nutrition advice. It is chip taxonomy applied to a species that did not ask for one.
If your dog needs food, feed it food. If your dog has already located a chip, this is the order in which we would prefer that chip to be.
The criteria
Every contender had to clear four rules.
- Sodium under 50mg per serving. Lower if possible.
- No onion, garlic, chive, or shallot anywhere on the ingredient list.
- No xylitol. Non-negotiable. Xylitol kills dogs.
- Structural integrity soft enough for an aging jaw. Brittle shards lodge.
The picks
1. Boulder Canyon Totally Natural No Salt — 8.4
The actual answer. Sea salt absent. Ingredient list two items long: potatoes, sunflower oil. Crunch committed without aggression.
On the Chipter Scale for humans, a 6.1, dragged down by cowardly seasoning. For dogs, where seasoning is the enemy, this becomes a Tectonic Crunch.
2. Kettle Brand Unsalted — 8.0
Thicker cut. Slightly oilier. The dog will not mind. The kitchen floor will.
Same two-ingredient honesty as Boulder Canyon. Crunch sits one notch louder, which the retriever will read as personality.
3. A plain baked potato round — 7.6
Slice a russet thin. Bake at 400°F until the edges curl. No oil, no salt. Pedantic, but correct.
Falls short of an actual chip on structural integrity. Makes up for it on full sovereignty over the input.
The chips that lost
Anything labeled barbecue, sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, or honey mustard. The dog hears flavor and the owner hears vet bill.
Lay's Classic in the yellow bag. Sodium 170mg per serving. Beloved, banned.
Anything dusted orange. The dust was the problem from the beginning.
Verdict
Boulder Canyon Totally Natural No Salt. One chip. Then water. Then the actual dog food.
The Chipter Scale, applied to dogs, is a small scale. Most chips do not register. The few that do, register quietly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcus Crunchwell
Marcus Crunchwell is Chipter's lead chip critic with over a decade of professional snack evaluation experience. Known for his unflinching honesty and deadpan delivery, Marcus has sampled over 3,000 varieties of chips from 47 countries. He holds a Ph.D. in Food Science and approaches each chip with the seriousness of a sommelier evaluating a vintage Bordeaux, but with considerably more salt and considerably less pretense.