Dog ate 5.5 oz. of chocolate chips (in cookies)

[RiderWriter]

We walked in tonight and found the remains of some freshly-baked cookies on the floor and a very guilty dog. 43 lb. Springer. Cookies were made with the chips, a sleeve of graham cracker crumbs and a can of condensed milk. Now, the charts I found online said 5.5 oz. of semi-sweet is NOT enough for toxicity in a dog her size, but I erred on the side of caution and tried to induce vomiting. THREE rounds of hydrogen peroxide (first one about 3 oz., second two 6 oz. each, as indicated), one long walk, and two hours later - nada. No barf.

NOW what do I do? Can’t give any more peroxide, now I’m worried about THAT! I did let her drink some water an hour ago thinking that would fill her tummy up more, but nothing has changed… She’s acting fine, just annoyed because I’ve tied her up on the tile floor.

[JanM]

Salt on the back of the tongue will make her puke. And I would worry about the effect of all that sugar on the intestinal tract. The 3 a.m. trots and/or pukes are in your future. Remember white vinegar and water mixed 50/50 will clean this up.

[JLMet]

You should mix the hydrogen peroxide with salt, that’s what gets them going!

[Simbalism]

Last year( a little closer to Christmas) my mini aussie ate about 3 oz of fudge that someone had given to my sister. My sister had set down her work bag and “miss piggy” immediately got into it and ate it. I called the vet and she said for her weight it was not a problem. She never got sick, although I was worried about possible diarrhea. I will be interested to see if she has a problem in her kennel tonight while I am at work. Yesterday am when I got home from work she had opened my bedroom door and had eaten a bag of freeze dried elk chips that I had gotten for a Christmas treat for the dogs. (my sis lets her out for me in the am)

[Anne_FS]

Not all dogs react badly to the theobromine in chocolate. Looks like yours is one of the many (I bet the majority) that do not. Great! Although bummer that she ate your chocolate chip cookies.

My cousin’s Borzoi once ate a 5 lb. solid chocolate Easter bunny. They’d put it on top of the refrigerator thinking it was out of reach. Borzoi are TALL on their hind legs. They came downstairs in the morning and in the gloaming saw her white muzzle all dark and panicked thinking it was blood. It was chocolate. No more bunny.

[Hilary]

When I was a kid we had a border collie who loved chocolate. We didn’t know chocolate was poisonous but did try to keep her from it. However, once she ate an entire box of baker’s chocolate for which we did call the vet.

The vet said “well, she’ll be miserable for a while, and probably throw up so make sure she’s outside”. She threw up and got the shakes but was fine. And unfortunately was not cured of her love of chocolate. She wasn’t interested in other flavors but you couldn’t leave chocolate out.

[LauraKY]

My lab just ate a half a pan of brownies. I called the vet and they said not to worry, he would have to eat several pans to make him sick.

Next time, call the vet before trying to induce vomiting.

[Canaqua]

I think you are good…that amount of chocolate looks to be only about 1/3 of the toxic dose for a dog that size, according to the charts.

I’m surprised that peroxide didn’t work…those are pretty big doses, I usually do 5cc per 10lbs of body weight, which works out to considerable less than you were dosing, and get a good puke within 10 minutes every time. Was the bottle fresh? I’ve found that peroxide loses it’s ability to force vomiting after the bottle has been open for a while. I keep an unopened, fresh, bottle around for dog emergencies…it’s cheap enough to buy a new bottle each time I open one. I can use the already open bottle for other things besides inducing vomiting.

[Emryss]

Your dog should be fine - I’ve had dogs eat similar amounts of chocolate with nary a burp.

I do, however have a scary, scary story about chocolate overdose in a dog: my little Cavalier bitch, who weighs about 14 pounds, ate almost two pounds of semi-sweet chocolate chips and she did not throw them up. I did not know she had eaten them, but did notice that she was “off” and watched her carefully. Ten minutes (tops) later I could see her heart beating through her ribcage and she was obviously a sick puppy.

I rushed her to the vet, and while she vomited there (producing the evidence of her misdeed!) she had already absorbed enough theobromine in her system to be a very serious threat to her life. She was in convulsions that afternoon, and we almost lost her. Funny thing is, once the toxin is gone through their system, they are fine very quickly. I brought home a tired but perfectly healthy dog the next morning. That vet bill is taped to the jar where we now keep chocolate chips, so a bag cannot be snatched from the counter…
[URL=“http://image86.webshots.com/86/0/59/2/2180059020063031381lPnjfn_ph.jpg”]
She’s not as innocent as she looks.

[JanM]

It’s amazing how resilient some animals are, and what little piggies they can be too. I’m glad your dog is fine, and back to normal.

[Hilary]

Theobromine is toxic to people too -although it takes a much larger dose than for a dog or cat - but imagine how awful you’d feel if you ingested nearly 2lbs of chocolate, figuring a weight ratio of what a dog might consume. And yes, hydrogen peroxide becomes plain old water if it is old or exposed to light and air.

I wonder if the cookie part of her gorge somehow diluted the chocolate in her digestive process?

[RiderWriter]

“I’m surprised that peroxide didn’t work…those are pretty big doses, I usually do 5cc per 10lbs of body weight, which works out to considerable less than you were dosing, and get a good puke within 10 minutes every time. Was the bottle fresh? I’ve found that peroxide loses it’s ability to force vomiting after the bottle has been open for a while. I keep an unopened, fresh, bottle around for dog emergencies…it’s cheap enough to buy a new bottle each time I open one. I can use the already open bottle for other things besides inducing vomiting.”

Whoops - in my typing haste, I wrote the wrong thing - it was 6 cc. of peroxide, not 6 oz.! Yikes! That would have been a HUGE dose! I put the salt on the tongue, too but guess what - the poor dog never did throw up, at all. I started wondering if it was because the bottle was old and sure enough, that’s what you guys are saying. I will be replacing it for sure.

At any rate, doggie slept fine last night (unlike me, I was up three times to check on her), woke up demanding b’fast and has acted absolutely normal all day. Normal poops, too! Can’t quite believe it. Just call her Ms. Cast-Iron Guts, I guess. :-/ Oh, and when my mom made a replacement batch of the cookies she showed right up looking interested, of course!

[Abberlaze]

FYI, there is an animal poison control hotline that you can call to get information about whether what your dog consumed was toxic and if so, what you should do about it. They were super helpful when my Lab-x ate my sister’s food supply for the week (she promised she had put the food in a safe place, I didn’t check, and it was on the counter). $65 well worth it.

[MunchingonHay]

I am glad to hear your dog is on the mend.

Funny story.

I was in a cupcake competition this time last year. I baked 2 dozen french vanilla with chocolate chip cupcakes and 1 dozen peanut butter chocolate chip cupcakes. I was using a gluten free recipe that I modified to be vegetarian. (no egg). I also wanted to win so I used high end chocolate chips (not toll house), french vanilla soy milk as my milk/water, and high end butter. And I also go heavy handed on the chips!

I had all the cupcakes cooling on the table along with 3 dozen mini cupcakes for free samples and popped down to school to drop off an art project.

Riley never shows any interested in human food. I thought I was fine. I came back 15 mins later (school is 1 mile away) to a cleared off table! He had eatten all the cupcakes, wrappers and all. It looked like he swallowed a basketball!

All in all he ate; a pound of butter, nearly 3 cups of french vanilla soy milk, 3 bags of chocolate chips, a cup of peanut butter, and of course all the gluten free flour, sugar, etc that go along with all those cupcakes.

I CRIED! I did not get mad at him, it was my fault for leaving them out, but I was so mad at the situation. I had just budgeted enough money to make the competition cupcakes and I was all out of ingredients. I ended up buy sub-par ingredients for the extra cupcakes I had to make.

And to rub salt into the wound, I did not win or even place. And I did not sell one cupcake:cry:

And how did Riley fair through all of this…he was fine. Thank god I used grainfree flours since he is allergic to grains! I only gave him pumpkin in small doses for the next 2 days, his poos were a bit runny but that was to be expected.

[Anne_FS]

Awwww, I’m so sorry. That horrible realization when you saw what he’d done…I’d have cried, too (actually HAVE cried when I’ve come home to see something precious destroyed).

Can you laugh about it yet? It’s really a very funny story. Really. It is. Honest…Too soon???

[MunchingonHay]

Its all good Anne,

It will be a year ago this weekend. It is funny, the look on Rye’s face, that he was so pleased with himself that he ate all those cupcakes is funny. I laughed about it the next day.

I have since left food on the table and he does not touch it, just that one time.

[Kryswyn]

Even 20 years ago, you would’ve just cursed him and been done with it. While I am not advocating feeding our dogs large amounts of chocolate (or onions or raisins or grapes) dogs are omnivores and can eat lots of things that would cause humans great suffering. It seems after reading the chart on the internet, you should’ve just gone to sleep. But at least you found out your hydroperoxide was stale dated.

[JB]

Keep in mind it’s the cocoa that’s the issue, not “chocolate” in general. Some chocolate contains very little cocoa.

There’s a bigger issue with how much sugar is in “chocolate” than how much cocoa if you’re using semi-sweet chocolate. And if you’re using milk chocolate, that’s even more sugar and even less cocoa.

[dani0303]

When my beagle/aussie mix was about 6 months old we had a birthday party at the barn where I was working. Some of the kids left the tack room door open and that pup ate an entire chocolate cake. She was miserable and puking, but the vet was pretty sure it had to do with her being 15lbs and eating a whole cake and less about the chocolate. She never did that again

[Canaqua]

[QUOTE=Abberlaze;6691923]
FYI, there is an animal poison control hotline that you can call to get information about whether what your dog consumed was toxic and if so, what you should do about it. They were super helpful when my Lab-x ate my sister’s food supply for the week (she promised she had put the food in a safe place, I didn’t check, and it was on the counter). $65 well worth it.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, ASPCA Poison Control is helpful. The $65 seems like a lot when it’s something silly (like when my ACD ate an ant trap and they told me that there wasn’t enough poison in an ant trap to hurt a dog and just to watch for sharp plastic pieces). But, it’s a bargain for something more serious. They will keep the case open and consult with you and your vet, for the same $65, until the animal is recovered or deceased. When my BC mix puppy ate a mushroom she found in the woods last year, they supervised my vet’s treatment for several days…never did know if it was poisonous or not (it looked like an amanita). Protocol is to treat as if it is poisonous because only a mushroom expert can make a solid ID and most of us don’t have one on tap. Many vets won’t deal with poisoning without direction from the veterinary specialists at ASPCA Poison Control.