“Ok dammit, aren’t you people listening. We don’t need any more anecdotal “My dog ate a VW Bus filled with low-grade wax-chocolate and was perfectly fine. . .” stories.”
I agree, how about anecdotes about dogs that ate chocolate and died or required veterinary care? Surely given the high toxicity of chocolate for dogs and the great number of posters who own dogs that have eaten chocolate, there MUST be some posters whose dogs have eaten chocolate and only barely survived or didn’t survive at all.
My mom fed her miniature poodle a handful of M&M’s. (one at a time of course) She had never heard of this subject before (I was in another part of the house) or I would have stopped her.
Within minutes, the poor creature was so hyper we thought it was going to have a heart attack. She managed to get him to vomit and he survived, but it was quite frightening for awhile.
Now that is chioce. You have now stooped to insulting the intelligence of my dog. May I ask you for a cite regarding your suggestion of a relationship between a dog’s cognitive abilities and consumption of theobromine? Or did you just pull that out of your ass? What has smoking pot got to do with it? Have you been smoking a little yourself?
Another point to consider here is that the main problem with toxicity of theobromine in dogs is that they don’t metabolize the substance as quickly as say, humans do, so are at risk of levels of theobromine reaching the toxic.
Thus, one “dose” of chocolate might not do the dog visible harm, but if it happens again soon, that toxic concentration might be reached.
So, to ‘sum up’: Don’t give chocolate to dogs, ever.
~Wolfrick
ps. One old-formulation package of Ex-Lax laxative supposedly contained enough theobromine to be fatal to even a large dog. Ex-Lax now contains phenolpthaline (ever titrated?) as the active ingredient.
Why dogs? Why not cats? Or mice? Or caterpillars? I would’ve thought poisonous substances would affect a much wider range of creatures than just one species.
As a member of an E-mail group of Corgi owners, I have heard stories in both directions, too.
Actually, just about any food or toy that is brought up brings an avalanche of stories… “My dog choked on that food/toy/treat…” “My dog can’t live without that food/toy/treat…”
To be on the safe side, whenever I give my girl a new food, toy or treat, I watch her carefully to make sure nothing goes wrong.
A neighbor has a poodle/shitzu mix who loves rib bones. She takes about a half hour to get through a six incher and has never had a problem. On the 4th of July, the neighbor offered one to my dog. I decided that one would be permissible, but only one, so I could see how her system dealt with it (by the next day). She chowed the thing down in two seconds, seemed fine, then at 5:00 AM the next morning, vomited several pieces back up. I suspect it’s because she didn’t chew it thoroughly enough… No more rib bones for sweet Crease.