Anti-Chocolate Your Pet

This Valentine’s Day remem­ber to cher­ish your pet by putting away the presents.  Teddy bears will become chok­ing chew toy haz­ards and choco­late will become a trip to the emer­gency vet.  Happy Valentine’s Day to you.  Tell your pet his dreams of going to Candy Moun­tain to swim in the choco­late water­fall with sugar plum fairies just ain’t happening.

Choco­late was in the TOP 10 Pet Poi­sons for 2009.  And con­tin­ues to be a main cul­prit in pet poi­son­ing.  Dogs seem to be listed more than cats.  Not because choco­late is any less bad for cats, but because cats just don’t eat it as much.  Thank­fully, cats just don’t have the sweet tooth dogs have.  So the good news about cats is they gen­er­ally don’t want choco­late, the bad news is when they do it’s big trou­ble.  Their small mass is far more sus­cep­ti­ble to toxic lev­els com­pared to your aver­age size dog.

The entire rea­son choco­late is bad for pets is because of the toxic com­pounds called methylx­an­thines, specif­i­cally theo­bromine and caf­feine.  Dogs (and cats) don’t have the same enzymes or metab­o­lism we do, so choco­late is extremely dif­fi­cult for them to digest.  The half life (once ingested) in dogs is esti­mated at 17.5 hours.  The lethal dose of theo­bromine for dogs is between 100mg to 200mg per kg of body­weight.  How­ever, accord­ing to the ASPCA’s Poi­son Con­trol Cen­ter, symp­toms appeared at 20 mg/kg, with severe symp­toms at 40–50 mg/kg, and seizures at 60 mg/kg.  The amount ingested, type of choco­late, and your dog’s body weight will deter­mine your par­tic­u­lar dog’s fate.  See this Choco­late Chart for a bet­ter idea between the dif­fer­ence of: white, milk, dark, semi-sweet, bak­ers, & cocoa, and how it com­pares to your dog’s weight.

Esti­mated Theo­bromine Per Ounce of Chocolate

• White choco­late = 1 mg/oz
• Milk choco­late = 44–64 mg/oz
• Dark choco­late is = 150–160 mg/oz
• Semi­sweet choco­late is = 150–160 mg/oz
• Baker’s choco­late = 450 mg/oz
• Cocoa pow­der = 800 mg/oz

Symp­toms can be seen after four hours but can some­times take as long as 24 hours and range from vom­it­ing, diar­rhea, fre­quent uri­na­tion, hard (to the touch) stom­ach area, sen­si­tiv­ity in the stom­ach area, hyper­ac­tiv­ity, car­diac arrhyth­mia, seizures, and death.  Eat­ing choco­late is very seri­ous and you should call your vet or the ASPCA’s Poi­son Hot­line (888–426-4435, fee applies) imme­di­ately.  Since there are so many vari­ables, there is no spe­cific treat­ment for choco­late poi­son­ing.  Usu­ally your med­ical pro­fes­sional will advise you to induce vom­it­ing by hydro­gen per­ox­ide (one tea­spoon per ten pounds of body weight) or syrup of ipecac, if it has been under two hours since ini­tial inges­tion.  I’m no vet but I do know hydro­gen per­ox­ide should be used spar­ingly in extreme emer­gen­cies because this can cause esophageal ulcers.  I would call death by choco­late a rea­son to use it myself, it’s the greater evil.  Acti­vated char­coal is said to also help absorb tox­ins.  Your dog may have to go in and be put on flu­ids, treated for seizures, and/or mon­i­tored for heart failure.

If your dog gets a hold of one M&M don’t panic.  Chances are he’ll live.  Me?  I’d rather have my dog (or cat) eat zero parts per mil­lion of a known, deadly toxin.

For more infor­ma­tion on theo­bromine and why choco­late is harm­ful to pets see:

“Choco­late intox­i­ca­tion” by Sharon Gwaltney-Brant, DVM, PhD

Merck Vet­eri­nary Man­ual — chocolate

“How Choco­late Can Poi­son Your Dogs,” Vet Info

“Leave The Choco­late Out of Rover’s Cel­e­bra­tions,” FDA

Hershey’s Nutri­tion Page — Theobromine

IARC Mono­graphs VOL 51