Dogs and Chocolate

[Brian in Montana]

I've always heard that chocolate is bad for dogs, but I never really thought about how serious it could be. That is until Friday afternoon when this bonehead got a hold of a nearly full bag of chocolate chips. We darn near lost him.

 

[onpoint]

Can you tell us the effect/symptoms your bud suffered and how the vet remedied them??
Had a dog eat chokecherry stems once, cyanide poisoning - scary stuff.
Glad he's OK??

 

[Hem]

Who is the bonehead?

Kidding you in light of a not so funny situation.
Helps my sister is a Vet and makes a point of telling us what we should and shouldn't do....to the extreme.
Glad your dog pulled through...good reminder for all of us dog people this holiday season.

 

[mtmuley]

Glad he is ok. I'm too selfish to let my chocolate out of my sight. mtmuley

 

[Brian in Montana]

Can you tell us the effect/symptoms your bud suffered and how the vet remedied them??
Had a dog eat chokecherry stems once, cyanide poisoning - scary stuff.
Glad he's OK??

The first thing was he just started puking every 20 minutes, then diarrhea. I'd found the shredded Nestle chocolate chips bag so I had a good idea what was wrong, but I honestly figured he'd just puke it up and lay around a little and get over it.

Nope. It turns out there is a chemical in chocolate that is very toxic to a dog, the darker the chocolate the more of this chemical is in it. Rigby ate nearly 30 oz of semi-sweet. Anyway as the vomiting subsided he got very restless, then he started trembling uncontrollably and having muscle spasms. Shortly after that his antsiness started turning to lethargy and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, the trembling and spasms got worse. I feel bad for not calling the vet sooner, but when we finally did she said to bring him quick, the next step would be siezures and possibly cardiac arrest.

When we got him there he was really not the same dog at all, picture how you'd think a poisoned animal would look and that's pretty much it. They immediately gave him a sedative, stuck an IV in him and catheterized him. The vet was very reluctant to say at that point if she thought he was actually going to make it. It sucked to hear that. She said all that could be done was to give him "activated charcoal" to clean out his digestive tract, and keep fluids flushing through him, and hope.

He made it through the night and yesterday evening she said he was stabilized enough that we could bring him home, just needed to let him rest and drink a lot of water. He seemed a lot more like his happy self when my son and I picked him up, ate a little, then went right to bed. Then this morning we couldn't get him up. He'd wet himself and was trembling again and acting like he couldn't use his hind legs, I had to carry his 85lb frame to the car and back to the vet we went. She says that all indications are he's still stable in terms of the poisoning, but for some reason his rear hocks are very swollen and inflamed. He's in a lot of pain, but at least he's basically out of the woods with regard to cardiac arrest. So it seems.

Man it's really hard to believe this was all just from chocolate, but there it is. It was surprising.

 

[mtmuley]

Sucks when your hound is hurting. Helpless feeling. mtmuley

 

[onpoint]

Thanks very much for taking time to put that on here while your bud is still not doing great. It's really useful info that, unfortunately for you and him, is good for all dog people to hear and digest.
Again, very best of outcomes hoped for here.
Hard stuff, Brian........

 

[Brian in Montana]

Who is the bonehead?

Kidding you in light of a not so funny situation.
Helps my sister is a Vet and makes a point of telling us what we should and shouldn't do....to the extreme.
Glad your dog pulled through...good reminder for all of us dog people this holiday season.

He's about the best natured dog I've ever had, protective, great with the kids, been my jogging and hiking partner for last 7 or 8 years, terrific dog but he is kind of a bone head sometimes.

It was a pretty standard honest mistake the way it happened. I had to go into work early on Friday and my wife made some chocolate chip pancakes for the kids at breakfast. In the ensuing chaos of getting 3 kids off to school, she left the chocolate chips sitting on the kitchen counter. That's where he got a hold of it. She feels terrible about it, but it was just one of those things.

 

[Pelican]

If your dog gets into chocolate or other things and you catch it early, you can make them vomit it back up with 3% hydrogen peroxide. One teaspoon per 10lbs of dog. We mixed it with yogart to get the dog to eat it. It worked well when our puppy ate a piece of ribbon.

Glad your pooch is recovering.

 

[Hem]

Scary chit there after reading your description.
Stuff happens with dogs no matter what we do as owners. Believe me, I have earned the title bonehead with some over sights with past dogs.

 

[BigHornRam]

Glad your dog is doing better Brian. One of my labs has a habit of eating bad things, last time being wild mushrooms, and that made her very sick. I will make sure she stays away from the chocolate.

 

[noharleyyet]

Glad he's ok...

 

[SG25]

Glad he is doing better! Even though they are boneheads sometimes we gotta love them! I have 2 labs, one has eaten a rock twice and caused emergency surgeries for both $$$$$, and the other has eaten everything from dirty diapers to bags of trail mix. Called the vet freaking out because it had chocolate, said exactly what you did and just to watch him. Luckily he was fine and just destroyed my house with explosive diarrhea, I had to throw away 2 couches(no way I was ever sitting on those again) and have Stanley steamer come to clean my entire house(all carpet). It was bad. It looked like someone broke into my house and threw like 80 shit grenades in my living room, then decided that wasn't good enough so walked throughout and threw around 50 more. There were places I wasn't sure if I was more mad or more impressed how the hell that was even possible. All chocolate stays on top of the fridge now.

 

[JLS]

Glad he’s okay. Chewing gum is another thing to really watch for. It has xylitol in it, which is very toxic to dogs.

 

[Goatshoes]

Glad fluffy is okay. About 1 tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) will cause your dog to quickly regurgitate whatever he has swallowed. This would have been a perfect opportunity to apply that treatment. Its a handy thing to know. Check with your vet first to learn when and when not to use it. If you have a larger lab he may ask for a second table spoon full before giving up the goods.

 

[Brian in Montana]

Yeah, he's back home again and seems to be legitimately recovering now. Yesterday's ordeal was apparently burcitis(sp?). He apparently has a little arthritis in his hind legs and something about all the sugar and toxicity caused his hocks to swell up and become very painful. He still ain't moving around much but is acting a lot more like himself.

Lots of drama this weekend. Thanks for the kind thoughts and good vibes. It's amazing how attached a family can get to a big old smelly dog that drools too much. My son especially took it hard; we got Rigby when Sean was about 1. He's 9 now and doesn't remember a time when the dog wasn't around.

 

[onpoint]

Glad he's coming around.
That kid and his dawg thing is, in my mind, is one of the most priceless things there is.

One kid's opinion.............

 

[hank4elk]

Glad he is doing OK.
Almost lost a GS gal to her gluttony years back. Rio still does not understand why he can't lick the ice cream bowl after my dose of banana on vanilla with chocolate....I clean it out & give him some milk.

 

[Muskeez]

Thank you for sharing. I always thought the dogs and chocolate thing was a myth. The neighbors dog at a whole pan of brownies one time and was just fine. If I drop an M&M on the floor I have always let mine eat it. Not any more, she has enough issues now at 12 y.o.

 

[Salmonchaser]

My GSP Molly just won’t learn. Porcupines, skunks, anything organic is eaten, grizzlies and moose. Hydrogen peroxide is always nearby as is a surgical stapler.