View Full Version : oh no, not chocolate!
several years back when i played little league baseball, we had one of the famous chocolate candy bar fund raisers. my dog decided in the night that she had to fix her sweet tooth and ate 5 or 6 of the candy bars. as i'm sure most of you know, this can KILL your dog! if this ever happens to you, the way we fixed the problem is by force-feeding her 2 table spoons of hydrogen peroxide. it will foam up in the bellies and upset their stomach, causing them to reverse the ingestion process, and keeping them alive.
Ok I would never force my dog to drink peroxide and most chocolate won't kill your dog unless it's a very small dog that eat cocoa or dark chocolate!
the vet told us to do the peroxide thing... i wouldn't have known what to do on my own. the dog weighed about 45 pounds and ate 6 chocolate bars.. that's alot! what suggestions would you have?
check this out
http://www.chazhound.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120
Tinaweena
06-14-2006, 01:07 PM
Saje, a few tablespoons of peroxide is perfectly fine to induce vomiting in dogs. It's recommended actually.
I think 5 or 6 bars would be cause for concern also.
wow, well umm... nevermind then!
Saje, a few tablespoons of peroxide is perfectly fine to induce vomiting in dogs. It's recommended actually.
I think 5 or 6 bars would be cause for concern also.
It was most likely milk chocolate which doens't have that much cocoa in it at all. I wouldn't worry, really. Unless it was a tiny dog. As for peroxide I don't know if it's 'perfectly fine' with people they've changed their views on inducing vomitting from do it to don't do it so I'm quite wary about it with any of my pets as well.
Beanie
06-15-2006, 09:33 PM
SQUICKY TALK OF PUKE BELOW:
The problem with inducing vomitting with people is not just that it makes them throw up, but that it makes people vomit *violently.* The throwing up itself isn't the problem - it's HOW you throw up.
We have had to use hydrogen peroxide with my sister Eli's dogs twice, and my Auggie once. Eli's dogs got into chocolate; Auggie is a whole other long story, but he got into something worse than chocolate, and there was a long horrified ten minutes where I thought my puppy was going to die, blah blah blah.
Anyway, when you give the dogs hydrogen peroxide, sometimes their mouths foam up a little. They walk around a little bit, sometimes they start eating grass to help it along. Pretty soon that start that hurk-hurk-hurk!! thing and throw up. Usually two or three times, depending on how much they have in their stomaches obviously. Then it's over.
Now, Eli's dogs have sensitive stomaches, so they throw up quite often to be frank! I can assure you when they threw up after we gave them the peroxide, it was *exactly* the same as when they throw up normally.
It is, indeed, perfectly fine. =>
Yes, it sounds awful when the vet tells you to pour hydrogen peroxide down their throat and make them throw up! But it's really not so bad.
The issue of "how much is too much" is also more than a simple "dog is X pounds, Y chocolate has Z amounts of thebromine" equation, because all dogs tend to react differently - and I think the situation is usually that a dog gets into a bag of candy and you can't even judge HOW much they ate! Clearly it's always better to prevent your dogs from eating chocolate than to deal with the consequences, but hey... you do what you can, right?
I've had to use HP on a dog that ate it's brother's medication once; it took about a 1/4 cup of it, but it worked and the pills came up before they had a chance to get absorbed. It's similar to using liquid charcoal, except that it just expells everything, it doesn't absorb any toxins.
As far as the chocolate goes, it depends on the dog and the type of chocolate. My old dog ate my entire fundraiser one year, probably a good 4 *pounds* of chocolate and never blinked an eye. My Aussie ate 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies once and was fine. It's not a good idea to let your dog get into chocolate, but as long as it's not dark chocolate or baker's chocolate, the dogs are usually just fine.