What To Do If Your Dog Eats Chocolate

Would you know what to do if your dog eats chocolate? There is a chemical naturally occurring in chocolate that is seriously poisonous to dogs. If you suspect that your dog has been given chocolate, you will have to know what to do immediately, so read on to know what to do if your dog eats chocolate poison.

What To Do If Your Dog Eats Chocolate

Chocolate and especially strong, dark chocolate is poisonous to dogs and can be lethal, but it is surprising how many people do not know it. It is bad enough that a lot of adults are not aware of the fact that chocolate is poison to dogs, but hardly any children know it either and that is far worse.

It is almost second nature for a child to share a treat with a favourite pet; be it a bar of chocolate, chocolate ice cream or chocolate chip cookies. So, the question is: what to do if your dog eats chocolate?

If your dog has eaten chocolate, there may be no symptoms - it depends on the amount of chocolate and the body weight of the dog, but over a few hours you may see some or all of the following symptoms: vomitting, diarrhea, hyperactivity, heart arrhythmia and twitching. Frequent urination is also a frequent sign.

If you definitely know that your dog has eaten chocolate, then you should definitely take your dog to a vet for a stomach pump. If you are unsure, you could try to make your dog drink a lot or be sick, but this is not easy with a hyperactive, distressed dog.

If your dog shows symptoms of chocolate poisoning and they do not decrease, your dog could take a rapid turn for the worse and die very quickly, because the toxins in chocolate work on the nervous system.

The active ingredient in chocolate that affects dogs is theobromine cocoa and it directly affects the central nervous system and so the heart as well. This produces heart palpitations and twitching which throws dogs into panic. Sometimes seizures are a result. Small dogs can die after eating only one square of chocolate, larger dogs may suffer for hours on the same amount.

So, what to do if your dog eats chocolate? If your dog is at special risk of being fed chocolate, you should take precautions. For example, if you take your dog to work or if you live near a school, your dog is at risk from well-wishers feeding chocolate to your dog.

The precautions you can take include buying an emergency kit from your vet. This kit will usually include activated charcoal, hydrogen peroxide and syrup of Ipecac. Then you will have to learn how to use them. For example, activated charcoal will absorb poisons and hydrogen peroxide mixed with water will make your dog sick, clearing its stomach. As a substitute, burned toast might work in a similar fashion to charcoal, but only if you can make your dog eat it, of course.

The hydrogen peroxide solution should be three percent hydrogen peroxide to water solution. Give your dog 1-2 tea spoons for a smaller dog, 3-4 tables spoons for a larger dog every 10-15 minutes until you produce vomiting.

The sequence is actually: produce vomitting and then administer the charcoal to soak up any residual theobromine. If you do not have instructions for the activated charcoal, give one teaspoon full to a dog under 25 k and two to a larger dog.

Obviously, prevention is better than cure, so tell your family that chocolate is poisonous to dogs or better still tell everyone that you want your dog to only accept food from yourself. This can become important later if your dog develops diabetes or another disease.

I hope you now have a good idea what to do if your dog eats chocolate.