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How Much Chocolate Is Harmful?


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I had to leave Cheyenne home today and she got into a box on my bookcase, and spread all the contents on the floor. In there, I had a sealed bag with several pieces of candy. She managed to drag out the Tootsie Pops and ate a whole strawberry lollipop, including the tootsie roll center. She couldn't hide the crime, since she had pieces of strawberry candy stuck to her chest and paws. She seems perfectly fine, but how much is dangerous? Needless to say, that candy is now in a secure place. I never thought that she would go after lollipops, but I guess she has a sweet tooth. She did pass on the peppermints, however.

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Okay, thanks, she just ate one Tootsiepop so it's not a large amount of chocolate. I'm trying to be so careful but am still making mistakes.

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It depends on several things, primarily:

 

1. How "dark" the chocolate was, i.e. how much theobromine it contained. Tootsie Rolls may taste chocolately to you, but they have WAY less theobromine than, say, good European dark chocolate.

 

2. How sensitive the dog is to that particular toxin. All of us, dogs and humans alike, vary in how our bodies respond to individual toxins. Some of us can eat a lot of bad stuff and not get sick, others get a taste and immediately start to puke. The only way you'd know how sensitive your dog is to theobromine is from what happened the last time they got into it.

 

3. Size of the dog relative to amount consumed.

 

4. How healthy the dog is overall. A dog in poor health will be less likely to tolerate toxins than a fit one.

 

If one of my (young, healthy) dogs ate a tootsie roll, I would probably do nothing more than watch the dog for signs of distress for the next 24 hours. If they ate a whole bar of dark chocolate, we'd be en route to the vet ASAP. Only you can decide what course of action would be right for you and your dog.

 

Somewhat more technical explanation, courtesy of Wikipedia:

 

The amount of theobromine found in chocolate is small enough that chocolate can be safely consumed by humans in large quantities, but animals that metabolize theobromine more slowly [such as dogs] can easily consume enough chocolate to cause chocolate poisoning....If [dogs] are fed chocolate, the theobromine will remain in their bloodstream for up to 20 hours.

 

The first signs of theobromine poisoning are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and increased urination. These can progress to cardiac arrhythmias, epileptic seizures, internal bleeding, heart attacks, and eventually death.

 

A typical 20 kg (44 lb) dog will normally experience intestinal distress after eating less than 240 g (8.5 oz) of dark chocolate, but won't necessarily experience bradycardia or tachyarrhythmia unless it eats at least a half a kilogram (1.1 lb) of milk chocolate.

 

More at the link.

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Yikes! I just discovered she ate not one Tootsie Pop, but three! She's a healthy dog and isn't showing any signs of problems. I'll keep a close eye on her.

 

Fortunately, there is very little tootsie roll in the center of one of the pops so the amount isn't great. I don't think three pops are equivalent to even one small Tootsie Roll. But, she's probably on a sugar high for awhile.

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Yikes! I just discovered she ate not one Tootsie Pop, but three! She's a healthy dog and isn't showing any signs of problems. I'll keep a close eye on her.

 

Fortunately, there is very little tootsie roll in the center of one of the pops so the amount isn't great. I don't think three pops are equivalent to even one small Tootsie Roll. But, she's probably on a sugar high for awhile.

 

If there is any problem call the Company that makes them and see what kind of chocolate they use.

I didn't think there was much chocolate in Oreo cookies based on taste but they use a lot of bakers chocolate. Gyp ate most of a bag and had some liver problems but recovered fine. Not sure what all is in Double Stuffs so his could have been a combination of things. He was very sneaky about it, if I hadn't pulled the package out of the grocery bag, I wouldn't have known he got in it. Snap ate 4 peices of Godiva milk chocolate with no problem other than a sugar high.

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Did you ask Cheyenne how many licks it took to get to the tootsie roll center of the tootsie pop? (Sorry couldn't resist). On a more serious note I've heard that its the bakers chocolate to watch out for.

When I was little I remember my grandmother being super upset with Budgie her cocker mix since he ate the whole box of chocolate candies she got for Christmas. He didn't have any ill effects from it.

 

Samantha

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I found the ingredients through Google. Chocolate isn't listed as an ingredient, only cocoa.

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Did you ask Cheyenne how many licks it took to get to the tootsie roll center of the tootsie pop? (Sorry couldn't resist). On a more serious note I've heard that its the bakers chocolate to watch out for.

When I was little I remember my grandmother being super upset with Budgie her cocker mix since he ate the whole box of chocolate candies she got for Christmas. He didn't have any ill effects from it.

 

Samantha

 

 

I think she cheated and chewed, based on the little sticky bits of strawberry that were stuck on her and the carpet in two rooms. It took me about 10 minutes to wipe it out of her fur. :rolleyes:

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I found the ingredients through Google. Chocolate isn't listed as an ingredient, only cocoa.

Jeepers, I really don't want to insult anyone's intelligence here, but what exactly do you think chocolate is made from? Once again, from Wikipedia:

Cocoa is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of the cacao tree, from which chocolate is made.

And I reiterate, it is not "chocolate" per se that dogs cannot process, but THEOBROMINE. From yet another Wikipedia page:

Chocolate contains alkaloids such as
theobromine
and phenethylamine, which have physiological effects on the body. It has been linked to serotonin levels in the brain. Scientists claim that chocolate, eaten in moderation, can lower blood pressure.[1] Dark chocolate has recently been promoted for its health benefits, including a substantial amount of antioxidants that reduce the formation of free radicals, though
the presence of theobromine renders it toxic to some animals,[2] such as dogs and cats.

I'm not saying a person should panic about their dog eating a few bits of Tootsie Roll, but one should definitely try to get a solid understanding of the issue to be able to correctly evaluate risk, now and in future. Otherwise, call the vet and let her do it for you.

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Jeepers, I really don't want to insult anyone's intelligence here, but what exactly do you think chocolate is made from? Once again, from Wikipedia:

Cocoa is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of the cacao tree, from which chocolate is made.

And I reiterate, it is not "chocolate" per se that dogs cannot process, but THEOBROMINE. From yet another Wikipedia page:

Chocolate contains alkaloids such as
theobromine
and phenethylamine, which have physiological effects on the body. It has been linked to serotonin levels in the brain. Scientists claim that chocolate, eaten in moderation, can lower blood pressure.[1] Dark chocolate has recently been promoted for its health benefits, including a substantial amount of antioxidants that reduce the formation of free radicals, though
the presence of theobromine renders it toxic to some animals,[2] such as dogs and cats.

I'm not saying a person should panic about their dog eating a few bits of Tootsie Roll, but one should definitely try to get a solid understanding of the issue to be able to correctly evaluate risk, now and in future. Otherwise, call the vet and let her do it for you.

 

 

I'm fully aware that chocolate is made from cocoa and am quite familiar with the whole process of how chocolate is made and the differences between them. Cocoa is only a minor ingredient in Tootsie Rolls.

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I'm fully aware that chocolate is made from cocoa and am quite familiar with the whole process of how chocolate is made and the differences between them. Cocoa is only a minor ingredient in Tootsie Rolls.

Okay. I thought you meant that since "chocolate" wasn't on the ingredient list, you didn't need to worry. I was just trying to point out that the problem is the theobromine, which comes from cocoa, which as you know is a key ingredient in chocolate...and apparently "a minor ingredient" in Tootsie Rolls as well.

 

Sweet dreams.

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Our last dog ate a large bar of Cadburys dairy Milk, (it was a very large bar) the only evidence that it had been consumed was the shiny purple flecks in his white ruff, we found this after we got home at night so there was not much we could do that evening. We watched him carefully and he did not even get an upset stomach.

When I mentioned it to my vet she said it was the quantity of actual chocolate consumed so he would have been in trouble if it had been dark chocolate.

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Our last dog ate a large bar of Cadburys dairy Milk, (it was a very large bar) the only evidence that it had been consumed was the shiny purple flecks in his white ruff, we found this after we got home at night so there was not much we could do that evening. We watched him carefully and he did not even get an upset stomach.

When I mentioned it to my vet she said it was the quantity of actual chocolate consumed so he would have been in trouble if it had been dark chocolate.

 

 

If it were my dog he'd be in trouble for eating the Dairy Milk, but only because that's my absolute favorite! :rolleyes:

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Since I keep my baker's chocolate in a tupperware type container in the back of the fridge, I'll really be worried if she can get to that! She's fine today and the candy is in a safe place, as are the graham crackers. :rolleyes:

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It's strange but my dogs won't eat chocolate. They will lick a chocolate icecream bowl or eat a oreo cookie but if I offer them real chocolate, they all turn their noses at it. Guess it's a blessing.

I wouldn't worry about anything but dark chocolate or really concentrated chocolate or maybe a huge amount but for us, a little bit of chocolate something has not bothered them in the least.

 

Mick won't even lick an icecream bowl if it's chocolate.

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She moved on from Tootsie Pops to the liquor cabinet last night. I have a round table that opens up on the bottom and there are a number of old airplane liquour bottles, old empty collectible bottles, and shot glasses in there that were my parents. Nothing in there is open or can be opened easily, even by me. Yesterday, she popped the door on it and scattered the airplane bottles and shot glasses around the living room. I told her she was underage and not to do it again. :rolleyes:

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Somewhere along the way, we taught Scooter the words, "Chocolate. Not for Scooter," and he walks away! :rolleyes:

 

My sister's Cockapoo ate a whole box of Fanny May candies one Christmas, with wrappers, and never had a problem!

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Many years ago I fed candy to the sheep, there was lots of chocolate (50 to 75 lb blocks of it along with various mistakes from the factory) the Border Collies, pups through adults, would occasionally grab a piece and the Kuvasz ate large amounts of it. This was before anyone ever said it wasn't a good thing for dogs. Probably just my dumb luck but there were never ill effects.

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When I was young my mother told me so hilarious story about our dog (she's half german shepherd and half golden retriever) Shadow. One day my mother made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and left it on the plate on the kitchen counter. My siblings and I were not around at that time but my mother went by and took a double check on the plate and realized one cookie is missing. Later she went by again and took another double check b/c another cookie is missing and she double-checked to see if one of us are around and then for some reason she looked at our dog and thought "Nah. Shadow couldn't take it herself" so she had to go out again and then came back and caught our dog in red-handed. Shadow put her long tongue to lift the cookie to put her tongue slide under it and then very carefully slide the cookie off the plate into her mouth! My mother could not believe it how neat she did on her own and that's explained it why she didn't think Shadow could have done that b/c usually dogs made a big mess!!! LOL So she scolded Shadow very strict not to touch it again so we always make sure it's away from the edge of the counter or put somewhere she cannot reach it. Aah. What a mischief she was!

 

So days later we heard a horrible news on the radio that owner of the dog who died want the radio host to warn many people about how bad the chocolate can effect the dog b/c one day she left a opened bag of chocolate chips on the counter while she was preparing making ingredients together before you put the chocolate chips but her dog jumped up and ate the whole bag of chocolate chips and half an hour her dog died. We realized that we were very lucky that didn't happen to our dog. Whew. Unfortunately, couple years later she got hit by a car and left it there to died and drove off and not bothering to call the police or anyone not even us where our house is happened to be across the street. We were greatly disappointed in that person who left her there to died. Oh, well. I hope it will never happens again.

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