Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:20 pm Post subject: Chocolate poisoning in dogs
Yesterday late afternoon whilst we were walking some of the dogs Merlin and Bret (brothers of twelve and a half years old) opened the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs and hunted about in the bedrooms until they found a 200gm Lindt bunny in a carrier bag in a rucksack. When we arrived back I found the gate open and the dogs upstairs with said bunny which had been half eaten and luckily they had chosen the milk one rather than the dark chocolate. I wasn't too worried as they have stolen chocolate before with no ill effects, but a few hours later Bret was very sick and started to shake and was sick again a little later. So just after midnight I had to phone our vet who met me at the surgery. He put Bret on a fluid drip and sedated him through the drip. I asked if I could take him home with the drip and he said that would be fine ( I would have been gutted if I had left him at the vets and he had died in the night). He slept by the bed with the drip hung on a clothes drying frame and woke up to go out in the night and by the morning the fluid bag was empty and Bret was feeling much better thank goodness http://www.vetrica.com/care/dog/chocolate.shtml
Glad he is perky this morning and hope there are no lasting effects. _________________ Sue, Chase and the non-Brittany boys - Brice & Piper. Pets first and foremost.
Cheap at the price for saving the boy's life! I think you should give up chocolate for the sake of your dogs' lives, Barbara! If you will, I will! By the way, how is that one with the lungworm? _________________ Annie
Handle every situation like a dog, if you can't eat it or play with it, just pee on it and walk away
Glad to hear he is OK now - certainly an object lesson to us all.
To think years ago one of my spaniel's party tricks was to retrieve a chocolate to hand. (the reward being to be given it) The other was an egg which you could hear roll back and forth along her teeth. _________________ Guy, Ellie, Topaz, Catja and in memory Barley
Beauty from Structure
www.epagneulbreton.org.uk
So glad he is ok. It is a real worry with chocolate we always tell the girls not to feed chocolate to the dogs and to keep it well out of the way of the dogs.
It only seems like yesterday that Brett was that tiny puppy who I remember in the litter was greedy and very clever at finding the food no matter what it was!
I have been aware of chocolate being poisonous to dogs for some years and since I have known I would certainly avoid letting a dog have a whole lot at one go. I would not however throw a hissy fit if somebody gave my dog a sweet.
In the past I had a spaniel that hunted well but now and again would just lie down. Maybe three or four times a season. At the time it was considered that a Mars bar was as good a way to resuscitate a dog with this problem as any. I always carried a Mars bar when hunting with Ian and would give him half a bar in the morning and the other half at dinner time, if I could stop myself from eating it first.
When I think about it a Mars bar is more sugar and glucose than chocolate but I know of dogs, and suspect there are many more that I don't know of, that are stuffed with chocolate every Christmas and don't show any reaction. And most of them are small dogs.
This is the sort of thing we need to be reminded of from time to time. Just like not letting the dogs run in recently sprayed potatoes or carrots.
Hope the dog makes a complete recovery and that there are no lasting problems.
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If you will, I will! By the way, how is that one with the lungworm?
