Dogs and chocolate

[Meenah]

Michele this is for you!!! Yesterday Winston got into a box of chocolate. He ate a few peanut butter cups and a few kit kat bars. When I got out of the shower I found all of the wrappers in the hallway. I smelled his breath and it was "chocolaty". I called the vet and they told me to give him 1/4 cup of hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting. He drank a little of it, then I had to use a syringe to force the rest of it into him. It worked very quickly, and the poor little guy vomited 7 or 8 times. What exactly does chocolate do to dogs? All I know is the books I have say it can be toxic/fatal. I must say it was easier to induce vomiting in him than it is in the ER for overdose patients!!!! I think I want to change professions. Do Vets hire RNs???
Luanne

[SueC]

I'm curious about that, too. For some reason, I was thinking it was only dark chocolate that was deadly. My dog recently downed almost an entire box of my Valentine chocolate (damn him!) without any ill effects. I also caught my 2 year old feeding him chocolate the other day. He is 115 lbs, so I think it would take an awful lot of chocolate to hurt him. I didn't even call the vet since it was milk chocolate, but I'm wrong about that I'd love to know!

[Michele]

Chocolate and dogs....

The toxic ingredient is a methylxanthine....caffine, theobromine, theophylline. The xanthines are competitive agonists of adenosine receptors which causes CNS stimulation, vasoconstriction and tachycardia. They also inhibit calcium sequestration which leads to increased skeletal and cardiac muscle contractility. Basically you get one hyped up pup who can "speed" himself to death.

One rule of thumb is 1lb of chocolate per 10 pounds of body weight....so a little guy like Winston who's maybe 15 pounds shouldn't eat more than 1.5 pounds of chocolate....yes that's a lot of chocolate.

Another estimate is 2-3 oz of milk chocolate / kg of body weight can be lethal (unsweetened baking chocolate is worse). So it would take about 20-30oz for a 22 pound dog.

1/4 cup of H2O2?!? That a lot...I'd have said about a tbsp or two. More if it didn't make him vomit with in 10 or 15 minutes.

Your little guy should be fine...he may have dairrhea though and may be a bit hyper depending on how much he absorbed.

[Michele]

I bet a lot of vets would hire an RN....I would...you understand much of the medicine, you can hit veins, find a pulse....the pay probably isn't as good...probably around $15 an hour depending on the market...but many people enjoy working with animals so much that it's worth it.

[Meenah]

Thanks Michele. It helps to understand the Why? & How? I really didn't ask when I called the Vet because I just wanted him to be OK. He did vomit 7 or 8 times, but no diarrhea. He was fine after that, ate dinner, drank water, peeed & pooped!!!!! It is funny, but as a nurse, I assume if food goes in and pee & poop come out they can only be getting better. I doubt very much chocolate was absorbed, because I induced vomiting within 15 minutes of him eating the candy!!!! He was just not too eager to sit in my lap yesterday.
Luanne

[Michele]

It is funny, but as a nurse, I assume if food goes in and pee & poop come out they can only be getting better.

We always joke at the vet school about how obsessed we are with feces!

chocolate

Our little one got into a bag of cadbury east eggs while we were out and at the whole bag. When we got home we found the empty wrapper. Our dog only weighs 14lbs so that was a lot of chocolate. We went to the vet, they gave him charcoal and flushed him out, he spent the night and came back the next day.

Given the chance, he'd eat another bag i'm sure of it.