Has Anyone Here Ever Lost A Dog To Chocolate?

[Guest LittlePixie]

Again... I'm just curious...

Has anyone here ever had a dog become seriously ill or die from eating chocolate?

Obviously very few people here would feed their dogs chocolate on purpose anyway... but I know there's a few Vet Nurses around as well, so I was wondering if anyone has ever actually seen it happen?

[carebear]

lucy's never really had chocolate but maddie has gotten into blocks of chocolate before and never even been ill... sometimes tho she has seemed a bit not herself afterwards for an hour or so but then she's back to normal.

[Vehs]

My friend's Bernese had her stomach pumped after gobbling down a mudcake ... I don't think she actually had anytime to show symptoms though.

[Bundyburger]

Our old girl ate a bag of about 50 odd easter eggs, wrapper and all, and survived no problems.

[persephone]

My flatmate used to feed dogs smarties etc, till they threw up...

[FHRP]

My Flynn has eaten chocolate at various times with no apparent ill effects. His recent effort was a week ago where he managed to get a pack of small foil covered eggs off my mothers side table, gobbled all but one, foil and all before we caught him! He's polished off three large choc chip chocolate muffins before he ran agility at the Canberra Royal one year too. However, he's only eaten milk chocolate and he is a largish sized dog. If he ate any decent quantity of dark chocloate I would be worried.. and I do try to discourage any chocolate eating!!!

But no, I don't know of personally of any dog that has become seriously ill or died from eating chocolate.

[Bow Wow]

Little Pixie, I used to always feed my dogs chocolate when I was a teenager.

Had no problems. I use to feed my chi who I have now chocolate for years and did not link him getting off colour with me feeding him chocolate for a long time. Until I rang a vet and said that my chi gets sick and off colour quite often. He asked if I was feeding him chocolate and I said yes all the time. Once that stopped my chi never got sick again. I didnt know until probably 5 years ago. That chocolate was poisonous to dogs. God the amount of chocolate I fed that poor dog.

[sidoney]

The closest any of my dogs have come to chocolate was one of my girls gobbling up some chocolate cake. It was probably not enough to make her ill but just to make sure I gave her something to make her vomit it up again.

A couple of years back I was in an all night emergency vet with a puppy, and a dog was brought in that had eaten chocolate and was ill, although I can't tell you much more than that.

BTW that avatar is just so cute. Although I can't remember his new name; I keep thinking "Ralph".

Edit: thanks LP, that'll help me learn his new name ... Brody. He's just too cute.

Edited March 28, 2005 by sidoney

[Tilly]

When I was in school we had a little terrier. One Easter morning I woke up to find my box of easter eggs had been eaten (we used to have a box at the end of our beds for the easter eggs). Beside my bed on the mat was a sick little dog which still had chocolate around his mouth. He managed to clean up most of my two brothers eggs as well as mine.

We carried him outside where he was sick. He slept for most of the day and didn't eat any dinner that day. The next day he was back to normal. At that stage I didn't know chocolate was bad for dogs but he didn't seem to have any side effects from the experience.

[Staffyluv]

Once caught the staffy with the remains of a halloween haul the kids got heaps of stuff...

He was very hyper for an hour or so but apart from that he was fine...

He had technicolour poo the next day with all the lovely coloured lolly and choc wrappers...

Jodie

[Lablover]

No and either have friends of mine.

Our first labrador somehow snuck into our family room, where the chocolate laden Christmas tree was located years ago. She ate probaby 40 chocolate decorations and suffered no side effects.

[shapeshifter]

Although I don't think it's a crock of **** I do think that a dog would have to eat a HUGE amount and over a period of time to die. My terrier used to get into my chocolate and lollies all the time and nothing ever happened, I didn't do it on purpose just forgot how crafty she is sometimes.

Now I live in a different set of circumstances and it never happens, I also don't feed my dogs any chocolate or lollies AT ALL but I've never heard of anyone's dog dying from eating chocolate either.

[Koza]

Don't think there is much cocoa itself in those "milk chocolates". With lethal dose of 250 mg/kg or higher, a 20-kg dog has to eat about 3kg of milk chocs!!!

[Wundahoo]

While I have never had a dog of my own suffer from chocolate toxicity, I do know of quite a few which have.

It is NOT something that should be regarded lightly..... it can happen, and quite easily.

The compound in chocolate that is toxic to dogs is theobromine. It is a central nervous system stimulant, and can cause signs of hyperactivity, hypersalivation, nausea and diarrhoea followed by seizures and death if sufficient is consumed. If a smaller amount is consumed, there can be non-lethal effects which can lead to chronic renal failure and other organ compromise.

The amount of Theobromine differs according to the type of chocolate.

"White" chocolate has almost insignificant levels, while milk chocolate containes about 150 mg per 100g. "Semi sweet" (dark) chocolate contains about 520 mg per 100g and cooking chocolate contains 1300mg per 100g.

The toxic dose for theobromine in dogs is about 100-200 mg/ Kg. However, in some dogs, toxic signs have been reported at doses as low as 20mg/ kg, so it is safer to consider this as being a starting point for possible toxic signs.

Theobromine is also found in caffiene compounds as well as "cocoa mulch" or coconut fibre used as mulch or pot liners in gardens.

I know of a dog which suffered severe toxicity from eating the cocoa fibre mulch which was used on its owner's garden !!!!

It is also thought that a cumulative effect is possible in those dogs which have very slow theobromine clearance rates. Not all dogs seem to metabolise the stuff as quickly as others. A chocky treat is OK now and again for dogs, but it isnt a good habit to fall into.

By the way..... people metabolise the compound quite differently to dogs ....... thank heavens !!!! I am a chocoholic !!!!!!!!!!

edit for S&G

Edited March 28, 2005 by Wundahoo

[StevieandSally]

This is a great topic Littlepixie.

Ive often wondered about things like chocolate (and the like) and just how toxic they can be.

While I would not like to take the risk since being made aware by reading "dol"

I often hear of peolpe who feed their dogs all those sorts of things like choc, cooked onions, cooked chicken wings, grapes, sultanas and the like that we are warned are totally no go!

Mine have their "off" days and Im never sure why! ... ..

[Bindo]

Darcy (schnauzer, so would eat anything) once ate a whole bowl full of chocolate bullets and freckles that some kids left on the floor during a sleepover - of course he was sleeping with them on someone's bed! No ill effects. Also, when the kids were little, he always seemed to know when there was a lolly bag in the house and once managed to extract the chocolate gold money without disturbing the wrappers! From then on they were hidden in a cupboard.

My breeder also told me that one of her dogs once got up on the table and polished off most of a chocolate mudcake, without any side effects.

I realise the dangers though and would never willingly feed a dog chocolate.

[Guest LittlePixie]

BTW that avatar is just so cute. Although I can't remember his new name; I keep thinking "Ralph".

Edit: thanks LP, that'll help me learn his new name ... Brody. He's just too cute.

He is extremely cute, yes :D I know it's hard to remember a name when initially it was one thing, you just learn it and someone changes it... for weeks now you'll all be thinking "ah yes, Brody. Oh no wait, his name changed... to Ralph. Or was his name Ralph to begin with? Was I right the first time?"

Thanks for the responses guys.

I was wondering, as I sat being a glutton over easter egg chocolate with Tilly looking on, if anyone had actually lost a dog to it... I recall a few panicked posts on here with things like "my dog ate one square of chocolate!! OH GOD!" and remember rolling my eyes at them... then got to thinking that I wouldn't know if it actually happens. For all I knew, it could have.

Tilly's eaten chocolate before... she's eaten dark chocolate chips a few times as well No ill effects from her though (not that I'd ever feed it to her on purpose)... this is the dog that can knock off an indian curry.

Edited March 28, 2005 by LittlePixie

[ninaandted]

my aunt's toy poodle once ate about three mint slice biscuits that he stole from a plate she had left on the table. it only took him about two minutes and they were all gone. he was a small dog (about 7 kilos) and they use dark chocolate on the biscuits so he was at risk, but I didn't know anything about the dangers at the time.

he got the "hypers" and literally couldn't stop moving for a few hours. if I had have known then what I know now I would have made sure my aunt took him to the vets straight away as he really did seem to be suffering but neither of us knew about the problem with chocolate and just put it down to the sugar and just kept an eye on him and tried to keep him calm.

Nina on the other hand once ate four lindt balls with the wrappers on after climbing up on the bed and then up on the chest of drawers to reach what we thought we had put out of reach!! i was worried about the affect of the chocolate as well as the wrappers but she pooed out four wrappers a day and a half later. she's always hyper so we couldn't tell the difference in her behaviour and she was about 20 kg at the time! i was already at work by the time my husband phoned to tell me what she'd done so she didn't get raced off to the vet. i'm the worrier in the family not him!!

[sidoney]

I took my old girl Amy to the vet this morning and there had been a rash of chocolate poisonings in there over the weekend; one little girl had fed her JRT 12 eggs and it had convulsions etc. They cleared out its stomach and so on and it survived. I didn't discuss it deeply as I was too worried about Amy at the time.

[Ci]

I do give mine chocolate here and there has only been one incident, other than that - nothing - all dogs have been fine.

The closest I have ever come was when Tex was about 5 months old and he stole a Flake from my cupboard at work and ate the whole thing.

He threw it all up within half an hour and he was very sick for about 8 hours after.

He actually went a green colour and didn't move the whole time for hours. I thought I was going to lose him, I rang emergency and they told me what to do and said keep an eye on him and if he doesn't come out of it to take him straight there.

But just when I was going to rush him to emergency - he starts to snap out of it and ran around stupid for a little while and was fine.

He still loves the stuff and stole a big egg from one of the kids this weekend, I managed to get some of it out of his mouth but most was gone by the time I chased him! It had no affect on him at all - His tolerance is probably sky high now!!!!

Sammi has been known to jump up on the table when no one is home and eat a whole box if it has been left on the kitchen table- nothing! Mind you we don't keep chocolates on the table anymore!!!

Edited March 29, 2005 by Ci