Dog vs. Chocolate: long term effects?

[Calvincrowe]

I got to spend last night in the vet ER with our Wee Dog (10lbs. of Cavalier Cross) who decided 12 ounces of Cadbury Milk Chocolate would be the perfect dessert. Our fault–totally forgot the bar on the coffee table when DD brought it home as a gift from England last night. I’m exhausted!

Besides being a bit smelly from the anxiety induced diarrhea, he seems alright. They treated with activated charcoal, after inducing vomiting, gave an anti-nausea drug and sub-q fluids. He had an incredibly rapid heart rate, retched and gagged and was hyper beyond belief–basically tripping on theobromine!

Now–long terms effects? Can it cause heart or organ damage? He is a terrible little dog (bites, barks, chronic infections, allergic to food…) but we love him dearly.

[animaldoc]

Should be fine once the short-term side effects are worn off…

[GotGait]

Had a schnauzer growing up that ate about a pound of chocolate mints and regularly got into my Halloween candy. She didn’t like green lollypops, but hoovered up everything else. Other than barfing it up, she never showed any signs of distress or permanent damage. This was all milk chocolate and not dark.
Some dogs seem to tolerate it better than others.

[supaflyskye]

My beautifuldarling neurotic dog was an quite an escape artist, knew how to unlock and open doors, and had a jump on him. He tended to use these skills in pursuit of chocolate. We did eventually, through a bit of trial and error, find suitable hiding places, but I mean - who expects their dog to escape his crate(we eventually had to weld his crate together to solve this problem), jump the baby gate, open a bedroom door, open a closet door, and get chocolate off a shelf?
he loved the stuff. :rolleyes:

On a couple occasions he ate at least a couple pounds of milk chocolate candy. He rarely(never?) vomited after eating chocolate and never suffered any noticeable effects from it, short or long term. We took him to the vet the first time he got into a large amount of the stuff but since he wasn’t showing symptoms(not even excessive heart rate), they weren’t too concerned. He was a large dog though, and would have had to consume quite a huge amount of milk chocolate to be in real danger, I suppose.

Hope your little pup feels better soon.

[Mara]

[QUOTE=GotGait;5656988]
Had a schnauzer growing up that ate about a pound of chocolate mints and regularly got into my Halloween candy. She didn’t like green lollypops, but hoovered up everything else. Other than barfing it up, she never showed any signs of distress or permanent damage. This was all milk chocolate and not dark.
Some dogs seem to tolerate it better than others.[/QUOTE]

That’s what I’ve read as well. The loveseat my family had when I was growing up had a permanent dog-barf stain on it that got there when my sister and I fed our poodle as many Hershey’s Kisses as he would down. Other than the puke, he had no other problems. (We didn’t know about the chocolate thing - it was about 1977 or so).

I also understand that high-quality chocolate is more dangerous, especially dark. I.e., a few pieces of Godiva are more likely to cause harm than the same amount of store-brand milk chocolate.

[dalpal]

Milk chocolate not deadly…dark chocolate with cocoa very dangerous.

[tikihorse2]

@Mara;5657310

That’s what I’ve read as well. The loveseat my family had when I was growing up had a permanent dog-barf stain on it that got there when my sister and I fed our poodle as many Hershey’s Kisses as he would down. Other than the puke, he had no other problems. (We didn’t know about the chocolate thing - it was about 1977 or so).

Or maybe it’s something about poodles, LOL? We had a poodle when I was growing up and that dog ate chocolate every chance he got. Like you, Mara, this was in the 70’s and no one knew it was bad for dogs. It was mostly milk chocolate, but occasionally semi-sweet as in chocolate chips. He lived to a ripe old age, too-- 15 years.

Kim

[Brydelle_Farm]

While milk choc is has less of the active ingredient that can be toxic, it can kill a dog, depending on the dogs size and how much they ingest.

Mild reactions may be seen at ~ 20 mg/kg
Moderate to severe reactions may be seen at doses over 40 mg/kg
Such as vomiting, diarrhea
Cardiotoxicity may be seen at ~ 50 mg/kg
Seizures are possible at doses over 60 mg/kg
Any dose over 40 - 45 mg/kg should be considered potentially life-threatening and should be decontaminated and then treated based on amount ingested and clinical signs.

100 mg/kg is the LD50, meaning that at this dose half of the animals will die; animals can die from exposures well below the LD50Doses from

Compound Theobromine (mg/oz)
White chocolate 0.25
Milk chocolate 58
Dark, sweet chocolate 130
Semi-sweet chocolate chips 138
Baker’s (unsweetened) chocolate 393
Dry cocoa powder 737
Instant cocoa powder 136
Cocoa beans 600
Coffee beans 0
Cocoa bean hulls 255

[Brydelle_Farm]

While milk choc is has less of the active ingredient that can be toxic, it can kill a dog, depending on the dogs size and how much they ingest.

Mild reactions may be seen at ~ 20 mg/kg
Moderate to severe reactions may be seen at doses over 40 mg/kg
Such as vomiting, diarrhea
Cardiotoxicity may be seen at ~ 50 mg/kg
Seizures are possible at doses over 60 mg/kg
Any dose over 40 - 45 mg/kg should be considered potentially life-threatening and should be decontaminated and then treated based on amount ingested and clinical signs.

100 mg/kg is the LD50, meaning that at this dose half of the animals will die; animals can die from exposures well below the LD50Doses from

Compound Theobromine (mg/oz)
White chocolate 0.25
Milk chocolate 58
Dark, sweet chocolate 130
Semi-sweet chocolate chips 138
Baker’s (unsweetened) chocolate 393
Dry cocoa powder 737
Instant cocoa powder 136
Cocoa beans 600
Coffee beans 0
Cocoa bean hulls 255

[Jaegermonster]

I have an Austrailian Shepherd that ate an entire one pound gold ballotin of Godiva Chococolates when he was 3 years old. He also later that same year ate an entire large bag of Amdro ant killer granules. He is now 16 years old. (I was not present when this occurred and did not find out about it for a long time).

Of course, after I saw the remains of the Godiva box on the floor, the least of his problems was the chocolate killing him.

the damn dog never so much as farted, either time.

[JanM]

I think a bigger concern than the amount of milk chocolate would be the amount of sugar in the candy. You’ve never lived until you have to take a really wide scraper to the doggie stream of liquid poop all over the kitchen and dining room tile floor caused by ingestion of ripe berries. The dog survived after vet treatment, however I was nauseous for a long time after that, and still get queasy thinking about that cleanup job. From now on the chocolate goes in a metal tin either on top of or inside the fridge on a top shelf.

[Brookes]

Keep fresh hydrogen peroxide in the house with a dosing syringe. When doggy eats something not good for doggy, dose doggy with h.p. and stand back. (best done in back yard) Doggy will hork up whatever naughty thing doggy ate. Works like a charm with no ill effects to doggy.

But I do mean stand back as it will come back up in a nanosecond!

[Mara]

[QUOTE=tikihorse2;5657385]
Or maybe it’s something about poodles, LOL? We had a poodle when I was growing up and that dog ate chocolate every chance he got. Like you, Mara, this was in the 70’s and no one knew it was bad for dogs. It was mostly milk chocolate, but occasionally semi-sweet as in chocolate chips. He lived to a ripe old age, too-- 15 years.

Kim[/QUOTE]

Ours lived to age 16!

One Christmas Eve when we were all at church, the same dog climbed up on the kitchen table, knocked the cake cover off of a two-layer cake my grandmother had made, and ate the top half off of it. (He differed from every dog I’ve had since in that he didn’t eat the entire cake. Apparently he had his limits and quit when he got full).

No ill effects but oh. My. God. Whoever keeps coming out with those studies that say sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity should have been in our house that night. His eyes were practically bugging out of his head and he hurtled around the house nonstop, caroming off walls and crashing into furniture. That dog was wired. This was a 10-year old miniature (around 20 lbs) poodle, generally fairly laid back. But man, that cake had him amped to the gills.

[Tobias]

I think your pup, should be fine. Our 12lb min pin got a big bar (like the big ones you get for baking) of dark chocolate, ate the whole thing. We didn’t even know until she couldn’t/wouldn’t fall asleep that night, she was shaking, bouncing around and her heart rite was like a rabbit! Yep a night in the ER, charcoal, vomiting, the whole deal. She is fine back to normal, ok well, she never was normal to begin with, lol.

[cowboymom]

I worked at a vet clinic last winter and knew an Airdale that got into an entire jug of maybe 100 acai pure hardline dark chocolate candies…:eek: He ate every one, wrappers and all! LOL we figured it was nearly 1200 times the toxic dose of chocolate. ETA IIRC it was these http://www.gourmetchocolatenbg.com/Xocai_Nuggets_Nutritional_Chocolate.html He survived it with no long term effects-I don’t know that I’ll ever worry about chocolate again after seeing what he survived! LOL His name was Omar… I started calling him Omar the Chocolate Bar…:lol: crazy dog with a death wish in his eating habits. He ate six inches of barbed wire once too…that was a surgery.

To induce vomiting: 1 teaspoonful of peroxide unless your dog is 80+ lbs and then a tablespoon or so… wait 10 minutes and if you don’t get results, redose. After that it’s a vet trip! and Brookes is right, it needs to be fresh so don’t grab the dusty bottle that has been in the cabinet for two years!

[shea_smom]

I spent $500 last New year’s day on my fat little mutt. He needed a lot of emergency treatment, but ended up ok. I think if I had not gotten him in right away he wouldn’t have made it. his heart rate was through the roof.
Bag of semi sweet chocolate chips. Stinker.

[clm08]

Jaergermonster - LOL!!!

I too have a mini poodle with an iron stomach. He has eaten a whole bar of dark chocolate, gum, assorted candy from Halloween cache, and last night he got on the kitchen counter and took a whole loaf of zucchini bread. He doesn’t even get diarrhea, much less vomit anything. He’s only 15" tall but can easily jump onto the kitchen counter, or chew a hole through a ballistic nylon backpack to get some gum, and of course delights in horse manure when he goes to the barn. He clearly never read anything about LD50!

[SanJacMonument]

A family schnauzer almost died from eating dark chocolate that was left on a coffee table. She was 7-8 years old (at the vets’ for two days) but she lived to be 15 and only had trouble the last two years of life, from cancer.

I think your dog will be ok but I’m sorry you are going through this; I remember the guilt was horrific. Makes you almost hate chocolate. Good luck and take care.

[tikihorse2]

[QUOTE=Mara;5657642]
Ours lived to age 16!
This was a 10-year old miniature (around 20 lbs) poodle, generally fairly laid back.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=clm08;5657762]
I too have a mini poodle with an iron stomach. He has eaten a whole bar of dark chocolate, gum, assorted candy from Halloween cache, and last night he got on the kitchen counter and took a whole loaf of zucchini bread. He doesn’t even get diarrhea, much less vomit anything. He’s only 15" tall but can easily jump onto the kitchen counter, or chew a hole through a ballistic nylon backpack to get some gum, and of course delights in horse manure when he goes to the barn. He clearly never read anything about LD50![/QUOTE]

I really am starting to think it’s a poodle thing-- especially a miniature poodle thing; ours was a mini, too! He’d raid Easter baskets if they weren’t put out of his reach. Crazy dog!

Kim

[eventer_mi]

Nope, it’s a Schnauzer thing. We had a mini Schnauzer growing up and she hopped onto my sister’s desk chair, onto the desk, and then on to the shelf and consumed her entire easter basket of candy - lots o’ milk chocolate! Nothing ever happened to her, and she lived to about 15.