Why is chocolate so bad for your dog? If you are like me I love chocolate and we as pet owners love to share everything with our pets. Our dogs are a part of our family and we try to have our pets do everything we do and eat everything we eat. The problem is that some things humans can eat are poison to our pets, especially chocolate.
According to Webb MD no matter how much chocolate you give your dog it is too much. The worst chocolate poisoning was when an owner fed their 8-pound poodle 1 pound of chocolate for its birthday. The dog was in a vet emergency hospital and given IV fluids and anti-seizure medications. Every time they stopped the seizure meds the dog would start seizing again. You would not feed a child a pound of chocolate much less a dog.
Chocolate is from cocoa beans, which have a concentration of caffeine and other related chemical compounds called theobromine. Theobromine is very toxic to dogs. Humans can metabolize theobromine much faster than dogs can. This chemical is in higher concentrations in dark chocolate, and chocolate bark. It is in lower concentrations in light or white chocolate.
With humans, the buzz we get from theobromine can last from 20 to 40 minutes, but for dogs, it will last for several hours. Studies have shown that after 17 hours half of the theobromine that was ingested can still be in the dog's system.
Theobromine is also toxic to cats, but there are very few reported cases of theobromine poisoning in felines because they rarely eat chocolate.
Dogs, on the other hand, will eat just about anything.
Even small amounts of chocolate can cause vomiting and diarrhea in dogs. Truly toxic amounts can induce hyperactivity, tremors, high blood pressure, a rapid heart rate, seizures, respiratory failure, and cardiac arrest.
Our First Aid course covers the poisons you can encounter with your pet. Pet 4 CPR is dedicated to having all pet owners confident in knowing what to do for their pets in all emergencies.
